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Fig.   1 — The    Dusky    Grouse    (D.    o.    obscurus).      Male    (the    lower  one)    and    female.     Reproduction    made    by    the 

author  of  Audubon's  plate. 


The  American  Grouse  and  Their  Identi- 
fication 

By    DR.    R.   W.    SHUFELDT,    F.  A.  O.  U.,    ETC. 

INTRODUCTION:— DUSKY  GROUSE 

PART  I. 

WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM  PHOTOGRAPHS. BY  THE  AUTHOR 


JAVING  completed  and 
published,  in  ten  parts 
in  Outer's  Book,  the  con- 
tribution wherein  I  at- 
tempted— by  the  use  of 
figures  and  descriptions — 
to  present  data,  by  means 
of  which  the  ducks  of 
this  country  could  be 
easily  distinguished,  I  now  pass  to  a  con- 
sideration of  the  American  Grouse, —  a 
group  of  most  interesting  birds  which  will 
be  treated  here  in  a  similar  way. 

In  an  article  of  mine,  published  in  The 
American  Naturalist  (Vol.  XXXVIII,  Nos. 
455-456,  Nov.,  Dec.,  1904r  pp.  833-857),  I 
give  "An  Arrangement  of  the  Families  and 
the  Higher  Groups  of  Birds,"  and  in  that 
arrangement  the  Gallinaceous  Birds  or  fowls 
are  arrayed  in  a  Suborder  (XXIV)  Gallina, 
wherein  are  included  seven  families, — all 
more  or  less  related  to  each  other.  These 
are  the  mound-birds  (Megapodia),  the  curas- 


sows,  guans,  etc.,  (Cracida),  of  which  we 
have  but  one  species  in  this  country,  namely, 
the  Texan  guan,  and  the  several  families 
containing  the  pheasants,  the  grouse,  the 
quails,  the  guinea  fowls,  and  the  American 
turkeys;  in  other  words,  respectively,  the 
Phasianidce,  the  Tetraonidce,  the  Odontophor- 
id(B,  the  Numidida  and  the  Meleagrida. 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  fowls,  as 
game,  occur  in  nearly  every  part  of  the 
world  with  a  truly  marvellous  array  of 
genera  and  species.  Of  this  immense  host, 
however,  I  will  consider  here  but  the  Ameri- 
can forms  of  one  family, — that  is,  the  Tetra- 
onid(B,  which  includes  the  true  grouse,  the 
spruce  partridges,  ptarmigans,  prairie  chick- 
ens, sharp-tailed  grouse  and  the  sage  hen. 
In  other  words,  I  shall  have  nothing  to  do 
with  any  of  the  four  or  five  species  of  big, 
true  pheasants,  which  we  have  introduced 
into  several  parts  of  the  country,  where 
they  are  now  wild  and  rapidly  increasing; 
nor  with  our  various  species  of  bob-whites 


B — 5216— 


240 


The  Outer's  Book 


and  quails;  nor,  finally,  with  our  wild  turkey 
and  its  several  subspecies,  and  the  cha- 
chalaca. 

All  the  true  grouse  of  this  country  are 
included  in  the  family  Tetraonidce,  'and  this 
family  has  been  divided  into  seven  genera, 
namely:  the  genus  Dendragapus,  containing 
the  dusky  grouse  and  its  subspecies;  the 
genus  Canachites,  containing  the  spruce 
grouses  and  Franklin's  grouse;  the  genus 
Bonasa,  containing  the  ruffed  grouse  and 
its  subspecies;  the  genus  Lagopus,  contain- 
ing some  fifteen  species  and  subspecies  of 
ptarmigans;  the  genus  Tympanuchus,  con- 
taining the  heath  hen  and  prairie  chickens; 
the  genus  Pedicecetes,  the  sharp-tailed  grouse, 
and,  finally,  the  genus  Centrocercus,  which 
has  been  created  to  contain  the  single 
species  Centrocercus  urophasianus  or  sage 
hen  of  the  sagebush  plains  of  the  West. 

These  American  grouse  are  found  in 
various  parts  of  the  United  States,  and  in 
Alaska  and  its  off-lying  islands.  Grouse, 
entirely  outside  of  these  limits,  will  not  be 
considered, — for  instance,  such  a  form  as 
Welch's  ptarmigan,  which  is  confined  strictly 
to  Newfoundland.  (Lagopus  welchi). 

No  country  in  all  the  world  can  compete 
with  North  America  in  the  great  number 
and  variety  of  grouse  contained  in  its 
avifauna.  At  one  time,  they  were  all  con- 
fined to  the  genus  Tetrao,  which  is  the  Latin 
word  for  a  grouse  or  a  pheasant,  and  hence 
Tetraonida  or  the  family  created  to  contain 
them  and  their  allies.  We  have  no  true 
Tetrao  in  this  country  now,  which  will  be  a 
surprise  to  most  sportsmen;  for,  years  ago, 
they  all  knew  it  as  the  word — the  scientific 
word — which  was  applied  to  all  true  grouse 
everywhere.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  late 
Professor  Sharpe,  in  his  "Hand-List  of 
Birds,"  recognizes  but  five  true  species  of 
Tetrao,  the  type  being  T.  urogallus  or  the 
famous  capercaillie,  and  forms  more  or  less 
related  to  it  which  occur  in  Europe  and 
northern  Asia. 

At  one  time,  I  know,  the  attempt  was 
made  to  introduce  the  capercaillie  into  Maine; 
but  how  well  it  has  done  there,  I  am,  at 
present,  not  informed.  If  it  has  thriven  as 
well  and  as  long  as  some  of  the  Chinese  and 
Japanese  pheasants,  which  have  been  intro- 
duced into  Oregon  and  elsewhere,  it  is 
now  entitled  to  be  recognized  as  a  bird 
of  this  country,  although  an  "introduced" 
one. 

As  in  the  case  of  the  ducks,  I  shall  adhere 
to  the  third  addition  of  "The  A.  O.  U.  Check- 
List  of  North  American  Birds"  as  the 
authority  for  the  number  of  genera,  species 
and  subspecies~of  our  grouse,  as  well  as  for 
the  sequence  of  the  genera  in  the  matter  of 


classification.  This  latter  seems  to  be  quite 
a  natural  one,  and  one  of  which  I  can  approve, 
which  is  more  than  I  can  say  with  respect 
to.  the  arrangements  adopted  for  some  of 
the  other  groups  and  families. 

I  shall  now  invite  attention  to  a  general 
review  of  these  grouse,  and  devote  the  last 
part  of  the  article  to  a  consideration  of 
the  genus  Dendragapus,  which  includes  the 
various  forms  of  the  dusky  tree  grouse. 

First  in  the  list,  then,  we  have  the  genus 
Dendragapus,  derived  from  two  Gr^ek  words, 
namely:  dendron,  a  tree,  and  agapao,  I 
love, — so  named  from  the  fact  that  these 
birds  spend  much  of  their  time  up  in  the 
trees. 

Richardson's  grouse  (D.  o.  richardsoni)  is 
a  representative  of  this  genus,  and  I  have 
frequently  shot  them  in  Wyoming  and  the 
Northwest.  Audubon,  who  never  saw  this 
bird  alive,  figured  it  on  the  ground  (Fig.  1), 
notwithstanding  what  Townsend  had  written 
him  about  the  habits  of  the  bird. 

These  birds  are  all  western  forms,  the  group 
consisting  of  Dendragapus  obscurus  and  four 
subspecies. 

The  next  genus  is  the  genus  Canachites, 
containing  the  species  C.  canadensis  and 
four  subspecies  which  occur  both  in  the 
East  and  the  West. 

Bonasa  (B.  umbellus)  follows  with  four 
subspecies,  also  eastern  and  western  forms. 
They  are  the  well-known  ruffed  grouse  (Fig.  2), 
the  word  Bonasa  being  derived  from  the 
Latin  bonasus,  which  means  to  bellow, — the 
drumming  of  the  ruffed  grouse  being  here 
compared  with  the  bellowing  of  a  bull. 

Next  in  order  we  find  the  ptarmigans  of 
the  genus  Lagopus  (Latin),  birds  so  called 
for  the  reason  that  their  densely  feathered 
feet  remind  one  of  the  furry  feet  of  the  hare. 

There  are  many  kinds  of  ptarmigans  in 
our  country, — all  being  of  alpine  or  boreal 
distribution.  One  of  their  chief  character- 
istics is  that  they  assume  a  white  plumage 
in  winter.  In  this  genus  we  find  L.  lagopus 
with  three  subspecific  forms;  L.  rupestris 
with  no  fewer  than  seven  more;  L.  evermanni 
which  is  a  good  example  of  a  ptarmigan,  and 
is  here  shown  in  figure  3.  Finally,  there  is 
L.  leucurus  with  its  two  subspecies. 

True  prairie  chickens  belong  to  the  next 
genus,  namely  the  genus  Tympanuchus,  which, 
under  the  species  T.  americanus,  has  two 
subspecies,  while  we  also  have  T.  pallidi- 
cinctus. 

Prairie  chickens  occur  both  in  the  East 
and  the  West,  and  will  be  fully  described 
in  a  future  part  of  the  present  series.  In 
the  matter  of  derivation,  I  may  say  that 
Tympanuchus  is  badly  constructed,  being  a 
combination  of  both  Latin  and  Greek. 


Fig.  2— Prairie  Chicke 


(Tympanuckus   a.    americanus)    Male.     Reproduction  of  a  photograph  made  by  Mr.  Geo.  E. 
Moulthrope  of  Bristol,  Conn.,    who  mounted  the  specimen. 


Tympanum  is  Latin  (tumpanum  Gr.),  and 
means  some  sort  of  musical  instrument  after 
the  order  of  a  tambourine,  or  perhaps  a 
kettle-drum.  In  anatomy,  it  has  been  applied 
to  the  ear  drum  (tympanum);  the  latter 
syllable  of  the  word  is  from  the  Greek  and 
means:  I  possess  or  I  have, — the  whole 
referring  to  the  distensible  air-sacs  in  this 
bird,  one  on  either  side  of  the  neck.  As  is 
well  known,  these  are  featherless  and  capable 
of  great  expansion;  it  is  with  these  that  the 
bird  "drums."  A  good  figure  of  a  prairie 
chicken  of  the  genus  Tympanuchus  is  here 
presented  in  fig.  2;  it  is  from  a  photograph 
of  a  mounted  specimen,  and  was  presented 
to  me  by  Mr.  Geo.  E.  Moulthrope  of  Bristol, 
Connecticut;  it  is  T.  americanus. 

In  some  parts  of  the  West,  the  pin-tail 
grouse  of  the  genus  Pedicecetes  are  called 
"prairie  chickens,"  especially  in  the  north- 
west. In  this  group  there  are  three  sub- 
species under  P.  phasianellus;  they  are  all 
western  forms  and  will  be  described  hereafter. 
Pedion  is  the  Greek  for  a  plain,  and  oiketes 
(Gr.)  for  an  inhabitant, — hence  we  have 
Pedicecetes  as  a  species  of  plains-grouse. 


Our  list  of  American  grouse  is  completed 
by  the  sage  cock  or  sage  hen  of  the  western 
plains, — a  single  species  of  the  genus  Centro- 
cercus  (Gr.  Kentron,  a  prickle  or  spine,  and 
Kerkos,  tail),  which  will  be  fully  character- 
ized in  the  concluding  part  of  the  present 
series,— that  is,  in  Part  IV. 

To  further  fix  these  genera  of  grouse,  the 
following  table  will  be  found  to  be  of  some 
assistance: — 

Dendragapus:  Size  large.  Not  crested. 
Well  marked  naked  space  on  each  side  of 
neck  capable  of  inflation,  usually  covered 
with  special,  but  not  conspicuous,  feathers. 
Feathered  to  the  toes.  Tail  squarish  and 
generally  composed  of  20  feathers,  rarely 
16  or  22.  Wing  over  8  inches. 

Canachites:  Size  medium.  Sexes  somewhat 
different.  Not  crested.  No  peculiar 
feathers  on  neck  or  head.  Neck  without 
naked  spaces,  but  skin  capable  of  slight 
distention.  Colored,  bare  space  over  either 
eye.  Nearly  square  tail  shorter  than  wing; 
feathers  stiffish  and  flat;  usually  composed 
of  16  feathers;  very  rarely  14  or  18,  but 


550816 


Fig.  3 — Evermann's  ptarmigan  (Lagopus  evermanni).  Male,  in  June. 


never  over  the  last  number.  Full-feathered 
tarsi, — that  is,  feathers  to  the  toes. 
Bonasa:  Sexes  alike.  Head  full-crested. 
Black  epaulette  on  either  side  of  neck, 
where  the  "tympanum"  is  rudimentary. 
Tail  and  wings  of  a  length,  the  former 
rounded  and  composed  of  18  feathers, 
with  distal  ends  truncated.  Tarsi  naked 
below,  and  otherwise  very  slightly  feath- 
ered. Breastmeat  white  when  cooked. 
An  arboreal,  woodland  genus.  (Said  to 
be  closely  allied  to  the  genus  Tetrastes  of 
Europe). 

Lagopus:    Head  and  neck  plainly  feathered. 
Tail  barely  rounded,  short,  with  14  feath- 


ers,— 16,  if  the  long  pair  of  middle  feathers 
of  the  upper  tail  coverts  are  counted  in. 
Unfeathered  red  comb  over  either  eye. 
Tarsi  and  toes  heavily  feathered.  White 
in  winter. 

Tympanuchus:  Moderate,  soft  crest  on 
head.  Tuft  of  elongated,  somewhat  pointed 
loose  feathers  on  the  neck  at  either  side. 
Below  each  of  these  is  the  yellow-skin 
tympanum,  which  is  bare  and  capable 
of  distention  to  the  size  of  a  big  lemon. 
Tarsi  bare  posteriorly,  but  slightly  feath- 
ered in  front  and  laterally.  Toes  more  or 
less  webbed  at  their  bases.  Short,  rounded 
tail  composed  of  18  feathers.  Sexes 


The  American  Grouse  and  Their  Identification 


243 


closely   resemble  each   other.     Terrestrial 
forms  with  dark  breastmeat. 
Pedicecetes:     Head  moderately  crested.     No 
neck -feather  ornaments,  and  the  tympanum 
on    either    side    rudimentary,    with    but 
slight    change  in  feathers  overlying  them. 
Crescentic  naked  patch  of  peculiar  forma- 
tion over  either  eye.     Tarsi  full-feathered 
and  the  feathers  long  and  hair-like.     Tail 
shorter    than    a    wing,     and    composed, 
normally,    of    18    stiff,    pointed    feathers, 
the   center   pair   softer,    squared   distally, 
and  one  or  more  inches  longer  than  the 
one   next   on  either  side, — the   remainder 
being  graduated.     Cock  somewhat  larger 
than  hen,  otherwise  sexes  similar. 
Centrocercus:     Very   large   species,   and   the 
largest  of  all   American  grouse.     Air-sacs 
of  neck  large,  peculiar  in  form  and  situ- 
ation, being  livid  in  color,  and  capable  of 
extraordinary    distention.      In    the    very 
long   tail,    the    feathers    are    narrow    and 
graduated,  being  from  18  to  20  in  number. 
They   are   likewise   stiff  and   acuminated. 
The   plumage   about   the   tympanums,  re- 
markable in  kind,  structure  and  arrange- 
ment.    Tarsi  feathered  as  far  as  the  toes. 
Sexes  more  or  less  alike  in  color  of  plumage; 
but  the  female  is  not  as  large  as  the  male, 
and  differs  somewhat  in  form. 
By   careful  study,   use  and  consideration 
of   these   generic   characters,   one   will   meet 
with  no  trouble  in  referring  any  American 
grouse,   at   least,    to   the   genus  to   which  it 
belongs.     To   identify   a   species  is  another 
matter,   and   to   this   subject   the   remaining 
three   articles   of  the   present   series   will  be 
devoted,    beginning    here    with    the    grouse 
included  in  the  genus  Dendragapus.    (Fig.  1). 
This    genus    contains   but    one    species, — 
that  is,  the  famous  dusky  grouse  D.  obscurus, 
which  has  a  general  range,  in  suitable  local- 
ities, extending  over  the  Pacific  coast  regions 
and    the    Rocky    Mountains.       They    may 
occur  from  the  upper  Mackensie  and  Yukon 
Rivers,   south  to  central  Arizona,  including 
all    the    mountainous   regions   of    California. 
They    are    dark-colored    birds, — hence    the 
specific    name    obscurus.      At    the    present 
writing,  the  genus  contains  four  pretty  well 
marked  subspecies, — the   type  species  being 
D.    o.    obscurus    of    the    Rocky    Mountain 
region,  with  a  range  extending  from  northern 
Colorado  and  Utah  to  the  central  regions  of 
the    western    parts    of    Arizona    and    New 
Mexico,  westward  to  Nevada  as  far  as  East 
Humboldt  Mountains. 

In  varying  localities,  this  bird  is  known  as 
the  dusky  grouse,  also  the  gray  or  pine 
grouse,  and  the  pine  hen. 

They    vary    greatly    in    size, — old    males 


with  a  length  of  24  inches  have  been  found, 
though  they  average  rarely  more  than  20, 
and  the  hen  never  over  19.  Males  have  a 
wing-extent  of  30  inches, — the  wing  being 
9  or  10  inches,  and  the  tail  7  or  8.  In  weight 
they  run  between  3  and  4  pounds. 

Old  cocks  have  a  sooty-brown  back 
showing  zig-zag  lines,  made  with  fine  mark- 
ings of  bluish  gray,  shaded  with  deep  ochre, 
and  with  small,  white  areas  on  the  shoulders. 
Flank  feathers  tipped  with  white  and  having 
white  shaft-stripes.  Below,  slaty-gray  with 
some  white  markings.  Sides  of  head  black, 
the  chin  and  throat  densely  speckled  with 
black  and  white.  The  somewhat  enlarged 
feathers  on  the  side  of  the  neck  have  black 
tips,  while  their  bases  are  white.  The  large, 
more  or  less  rounded,  brownish-black  tail 
is  mottled  over  with  gray,  it  having  a  plain 
gray  terminal  band  an  inch  or  more  wide. 
The  20  feathers  composing  it  are  broad  for 
their  entire  lengths,  the  whole  appendage 
being  very  handsome  and  striking. 

The  dusky  grouse  has  a  black  bill,  orange 
irides  tinged  with  brown,  with  the  comb 
over  either  eye  and  tympanums  all  yellow. 

In  the  smaller  hen,  the  coloration  is  lighter, 
the  ochre  and  white  markings  being  more 
varied,  though  the  slate-blue  under-parts 
and  tail-bar  are  quite  distinctive. 

Pullets  resemble  the  female,  though  the 
shaft  lines  of  the  feathers  of  the  upper  parts 
are  peculiarly  marked  with  white.  Tail 
with  shaft-lines  white,  enlarging  distally; 
the  feathers  occasionally  barred  transversely 
with  wavy,  blackish  bars. 

Many  sportsmen  are  familiar  with  this 
big,  clumsy  grouse,  and  have  called  it  the 
"fool-hen"  for  the  reason  that  it  seems  to 
have  no  fear  of  man  whatever.  Years  ago, 
when  I  met  with  them  in  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, I  noted — as  has  everyone  else  who 
ever  shot  a  blue  grouse — that  upon  being 
flushed,  they  almost  invariably  flew  up  into 
one  of  the  tall  pines  at  hand,  from  which 
place  it  was  no  trouble  to  shoot  them  either 
with  a  rifle  or  shotgun. 

Variations — in  the  matter  of  plumage  and 
other  characters  which  are  constant — are 
accountable  for  the  defining  of  the  remaining 
three  subspecies  of  this  bird. 

The  form  that  ranges  northwesterly  through 
the  coast  mountains  of  California  and  Oregon 
as  far  as  Sitka,  Alaska  and  the  South  Yukon 
region,  is  known  as  the  sooty  grouse  (fuligi- 
nosus,  sooty)  or  D.  o.  fuliginosus.  This  sooty 
grouse  shades  into  the  dusky  grouse  (D.  o. 
obscurus)  in  Nevada  and  Idaho,  and  into 
Richardson's  grouse  (D.  o.  richarsoni)  in 
various  points  in  the  Rocky  Mountains, — 
the  latter  ranging  from  southwestern  Mack- 
ensie to  eastern  Oregon,  Montana  and  Wyom- 


244 


The  Outer's  Book 


ing.  Finally,  there  is  the  Sierra  grouse, 
found  from  Fort  Klamath,  Oregon,  south 
through  the  mountains  of  California  to 
Mount  Pinos  near  Tejon.  This  subspecies  is 
the  D.  o.  sierra  and  was  first  differentiated 
by  Mr.  Chapman. 

A  brief  table  is  probably  the  best  way  to 
present  the  distinctive  plumage  differences 
characterizing  these  remaining  subspecies  of 
dark  grouse,  thus: — 

Sooty  grouse:  Colors  darker  than  in  richard- 
soni.  Tail-bar  less  broad  than  in  true 
obscurus.  On  the  upper  parts,  the  male  is 
blackish,  finely  speckled  with  slate-gray 
and  reddish-brown.  Under  parts,  dark 
slate-color  or  plumbeous.  White  mark- 
ings on  shoulders  and  flanks  very  indis- 
tinct. Female  exhibits  still  greater  differ- 
ences, being  known  at  once  by  her  elegant 
brown  markings  of  chestnut  and  rusty 
shades.  The  eggs  of  all  these  grouse  are 
practically  indistinguishable. 

Richardson's  grouse:  Closely  resembles  in 
all  particulars  the  true  dusky  grouse. 
However,  the  tail  is  generally  longer  as 
well  as  squarer,  having  the  individual 
feathers  broader,  and  the  terminal  slate- 
colored  bar  very  much  reduced  and  often 
entirely  absent.  The  throat  is  blacker, 
and  the  entire  bird  much  darker  in  its 
plumage.  (Fig.  1,  which  Audubon  gave 
us  as  the  "Dusky  Grouse,"  resembles,  in 


some  respects,   Richardson's  grouse,   espe- 
cially in  the  tail). 

Sierra  grouse:  As  stated  above,  this  sub- 
species was  first  described  by  Mr.  Chap- 
man and  in  the  following  words:  "Most 
nearly  related  to  Dendragapus  obscurus  but 
the  nuchal  region  oftener  browner  and 
usually  vermiculated  with  black,  the 
whole  dorsal  region  less  black  and  more 
heavily  vermiculated  with  brown  and  gray; 
terminal  tail-band  narrower  and  more 
speckled  with  blackish;  the  median  tail- 
feathers  more  heavily  marked  with  gray 
or  brownish;  the  scapulars  and  tertials 
with  the  terminal  white  wedge  less  devel- 
oped or  entirely  wanting;  the  basally 
white  neck-tufts  practically  absent;  the 
throat  averaging  duskier  and  the  feathers 
of  the  sides,  flanks  and  under  tail-coverts 
with  much  less  white." 

This  bird  differs  from  the  sooty  grouse 
"in  much  paler  coloration  above,  in  the 
heavier  vermiculation  of  the  entire  upper 
surface,  practical  absence  of  neck-tufts, 
white  throat  and  paler  underparts."  (Bull. 
Am.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist.  XX.  Apr.  25, 1904, 159). 

It  is  said  that  the  hens  of  the  sooty,  the 
dusky  and  the  Sierra  grouse,  in  their  breeding 
plumage,  are  hardly  to  be  distinguished 
apart.  Some  few  differences,  however,  are 
to  be  seen  in  the  tails, — the  "band"  being 
wider  in  the  dusky,  and  the  central  feathers 
being  less  definitely  barred  in  the  Sierra  form. 


L 

Fig.    4 — Ruffed     Grouse     (Bonasa    umbellus).      Male,    at   rest    (on    the  right)    and    drumming.     Reproducti 
photographs  from  life  by  Professor  C.  F.   Hodge.       , 


Equality 

FROM  THE  FORELOPER'S  POINT  OF  VIEW 

By  NELSON  M.  BLAIR 

We  found  it  at  last  when  we  rummaged  the 

place, 

Though  neglected  for  many  a  day, 
With  a  holster  so  worn  it  was  not  worth  the 

name 

And  a  belt  that  showed  signs  of  decay. 
'Twas   like   meeting  a  friend   who   was   long 

lost  to  view 

With  an  outstretched  and  welcoming  hand, 
And  it  brought  to  remembrance  the  faces  and 

scenes 
We  knew  when  no  man  owned  the  land. 

Just  a  plain  forty-five  but  it  seemed  like  old 

times 
When  I  "reached  for"  and  "pulled"  it  once 

more 
And  its  ready  response  when  the  "action"  I 

tried 

Showed  the  same  "sudden"  traits  as  of  yore. 
When  the  measure  of  men  was  their  courage 

and  skill 

As  the  highway  of  Empire  they  blazed, 
And  the  "things"  that  they  did  in  their  own 

simple  way 
Made  the  rest  of  the  world  stand  amazed. 

When  a  friend  was  a  friend  who  would  see  the 

thing  through 
Though  the  prospect  looked  slim  from  the 

start, 
Whose  word  was  a  bond  that  was  not  paid  in 

gold 

Nor  offered  for  sale  in  the  mart; 
When  the  courts  of  Injustice  did  not  hold  the 

reins 

And  men  had  no  laws  to  despise; 
When  the  weak  and  the  strong  by  a  Colt 

forty-five 

.    Were  made  equal  and  all  of  one  size. 
Who  says  they  are  dead?    They  are  living 

still 

In  the  hearts  of  the  few  who  survive. 
And  their    record  is  written  in  crimson  flame 
And  signed  with  a  "forty-five." 


The  American  Grouse  and  Their  Identi- 
fication 

By  DR.  R.  W.  SHUFELDT 

THE  SPRUCE  PARTRIDGES:  FRANKLIN'S  GROUSE  AND  THE  RUFFED  GROUSE 

PART  II. 

WITH   ILLUSTRATIONS   FROM   DRAWINGS    AND   PHOTOGRAPHS    BY   THE   AUTHOR 


ANY  years  ago,  I  pub- 
lished, in  one  of  the  U.  S. 
Government  Reports,  a 
very  full  and  illustrated 
account  of  the  skeletons 
of  all  of  our  American 
grouse  and  their  allies,  and 
since,  a  great  many  illus- 
trated papers  and  books 
on  the  skeletons  of  hybrid  grouse,  turkeys, 
pheasants,  all  the  quails,  and  no  end  of  foreign 
species.  I  have  also  published  the  skeletons,  or 
bones,  of  not  a  few  fossil  species  of  these  groups, 
and  I  have  often  wondered  whether  the  day 
would  ever  come,  when  such  information,  as 
I  presented  in  those  publications,  would 
become  so  generally  disseminated  that  any 
intelligent  person,  interested  in  our  game 
birds,  could,  by  a  mere  glance  at  any  dis- 
tinctive bone  of  any  one  of  them,  say  off-hand 
what  that  bone  was  and  to  which  species  of 
grouse,  for  example,  it  belonged.  Some  of 
the  bones  of  the  skeleton  of  some  grouse  are 
very  characteristic  of  the  species;  and  one,  at 
all  familiar  with  them,  could  name  the  species 
to  which  they  belonged  without  a  particle 
of  trouble.  For  instance,  I  can  distinguish 
between  the  pelves  of  a  ruffed  grouse  and  a 
prairie  chicken  (Tympanuchus)  with  my  eyes 
closed,  simply  by  handling  them.  Were 
such  information  general,  my  task  here, 
giving  rules  and  characters  for  identifying 
our  American  grouse,  would  be  very  con- 
siderably lightened. 

In  Part  One  of  the  present  contribution, 
the  species  and  subspecies  of  but  a  single 
genus  of  American  grouse  were  treated,  with 
respect  to  identification;  that  is,  the  dusky 
grouse,  Dendragapus,  and  its  three  sub- 
species. 

In  the  A.  0.  U.  Check  List  of  North 
American  Birds,  the  next  two  genera  directly 
following  Dendragapus  are  Canachites  and 
Bonasa, — the  first  containing  the  spruce 
partridges  and  Franklin's  grouse,  and  the 
second  the  various  forms  of  the  ruffed 
grouse.  Both  these  genera,  as  genera,  have 
been  characterized  in  Part  One. 


The  species  Canachites  canadensis  or  spruce 
grouse,  is  a  typical  tree  grouse  occurring,  in 
suitable  localities,  in  the  forests  of  Canada 
and  Alaska,  as  far  south  as  the  boundary 
of  the  United  States.  There  are  three  sub- 
species of  the  bird  described  by  science, 
namely  the  Hudsonian  spruce  partridge 
(C.  c.  canadensis},  which  has  a  range  through- 
out the  boreal  wooded  region  of  the  North, 
extending  from  the  eastern  base  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  westward  to  Edmonton, 
Alberta,  east  to  the  Peninsula  of  Labrador. 
It  also  occurs,  in  a  special  limited  area,  in 
Alaska,  which  entitles  it  to  a  place  in  our 
United  States  avifauna.  This  area  extends 
from  Bristol  Bay  to  Cook  Inlet  and  Prince 
William's  Sound.  A  paler  form  of  this  bird, 
known  as  the  Alaska  spruce  grouse  (Cana- 
chites canadensis  osgoodi)  is  found  at  Lake 
Marsh,  Yukon,  Northwest  Territory,  and 
has  been  fully  described  by  Dr.  Bishop  in 
The  Auk  (XVII.  April,  1900,  114);  and, 
finally,  we  have  the  Canada  spruce  grouse 
(C.  c.  canace). 

True  canadensis  is  referred  to  by  a  number 
of  common  names,  some  of  which  probably 
include  other  forms  of  Canachites.  Some  of 
these  names  are:  the  Canada  grouse;  black 
grouse;  wood  grouse;  spotted  grouse;  spruce 
grouse  or  partridge;  swamp  or  cedar  par- 
tridge. Its  scientific  vernacular  name,  how- 
ever, is,  as  I  say,  the  Hudsonian  spruce 
partridge.  The  adult  male,  in  full  plumage, 
is  slightly  crested;  but  when  the  crest  is 
lowered,  the  head  is  smooth.  Over  the  eye, 
the  comb  is  naked  and  colored  a  clear  yellow, 
changing  to  a  pale  red  under  certain  emotions. 

In  this  species,  the  upper  parts  are  barred 
in  a  wavy  fashion  with  gray  and  black,  with 
occasional  rufous  markings  on  the  wings 
and  back,  which,  on  the  wing-coverts  and 
shoulders,  are  replaced  by  white.  Beneath, 
the  plumage  is  a  shiny  black,  much  variegated 
with  white;  the  throat  is  bounded  by  white 
spots,  and  some  of  these  occur  on  the  sides 
of  the  head.  Breast  and  sides  white-barred, 
passing  to  semi-circles  behind.  The  lower 
tail-coverts  have  the  feathers  also  white- 


Fig.    5. — Male    (standing)    and  female  Canada  spruce  grouse  (Canachiies  c.  canact).     By  the  author  after  Fuertes. 


tipped.  There  are  16  feathers  in  the  black 
taU  which  is  slightly  rounded,  each  feather 
being  uniformly  nearly  an  inch  wide.  Distally 
they  are  tipped  with  brownish  orange, 
the  feathers  of  the  upper  coverts  being 
occasionally  bordered  with  gray,  often  ex- 
tending on  to  the  edges  for  a  little  distance. 

The  legs  (tarsi)  are  fully  feathered  to  the 
toes,  the  latter  being  naked,  covered  with 
scales,  and  each  fringed  with  a  comb-like 
growth  which  is  shed  and  reproduced  during 
the  moult. 

An  old  male  of  this  species,  in  the  breeding 
season,  appears  to  one  as  a  black  bird, 
grayish  above,  white-spotted  beneath,  and  a 
black  tail  with  reddish-brown  ends  to  its 
feathers.  Total  length  averages  from  15  to 
17  inches;  a  wing  7,  and  the  tail  5?  inches, — 
the  smaller  measurements  being  for  the 
female  bird.  In  the  latter,  the  black  is  not 
continuous  beneath  as  in  the  cock,  being 
replaced  by  tan  and  white,  especially  on  the 
breast,  with  white  streaks  on  the  flanks. 
In  fact,  the  hen  of  this  species  is  more  or 
less  barred  elsewhere  with  fine,  wavy  mark- 
ings of  dull  black,  giving  the  tout  ensemble  of 
the  plumage  a  very  different  appearance 
from  the  male.  On  the  upper  part,  she 
more  resembles  the  cock  bird,  but  is  browner, 
the  ends  of  the  tail  feathers  more  narrowly 
edged  with  brownish-orange,  with  all  of  the 
feathers  more  or  less  banded  with  buffy 


ochre,  which  bars,  or  bands,  are  said  to 
disappear  gradually  as  the  bird  ages.  Sub- 
adults  resemble  the  females,  while  the  chicks 
look  like  those  of  the  ptarmigans  with 
unfeathered  toes. 

Students  of  our  grouse  will  find  them 
much  mixed  up  in  the  literature  on  the 
subject;  as  for  example,  Ridgway,  in  his 
Manual  of  North  American  Birds,  bunches 
together  the  genera  Dendragapus  and  Cana- 
chites,  including  them  all  in  the  former 
genus.  Audubon,  however,  was  far  less  to 
be  trusted  in  this  matter,  for  to  him  all 
"spruce  grouse"  looked  alike.  In  his  descrip- 
tion of  the  Canada  grouse  (Canachites  cana- 
densis),  which,  under  the  rule  of  those  days 
he  placed  in  Tetrao,  he  says  in  the  fifth 
volume  of  his  great  work  "According  to 
Dr.  Richardson,  all  the  thick  and  swampy 
black-spruce  forests  between  Canada  and 
the  Arctic  Sea  abound  with  this  bird,  and 
considerable  numbers  exist  in  the  severest 
seasons  as  high  as  the  67th  parallel.  I  am 
informed  by  Mr.  Townsend  that  it  is  also 
plentiful  on  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the 
plains  of  the  Columbia,  from  which  parts  I 
have  obtained  specimens  differing  in  nothing 
from  others  procured  in  Maine  and  Labrador. 
I  have  also  compared  those  in  the  Edin- 
burgh Museum,  which  Mr.  Douglas  was 
pleased  to  name  Tetrao  Franklinii,  with 
several  of  my  own,  and  feel  perfectly  conn- 


354 


The  Outer's  Book 


dent  that  they  are  all  of  one  and  the  same 
species,"  (p.  87).  It  may  be  said  that  Mr. 
David  Douglas  was  eminently  correct  about 
Franklin's  grouse  being  a  distinct  species, 
and  he  so  described  it  in  1829  in  face  of  the 
opposite  opinion  of  such  an  indifferent 
observer  of  the  specific  differences  in  birds 
as  was  Audubon,  who  was  totally  incapable 
of  noting  any  in  the  cases  of  four  different 
kinds  of  American  grouse  now  all  included 
in  the  genus  under  consideration, — that  is, 
the  genus  Canachites.  The  idea  of  one  not 
being  able  to  see  the  differences  in  plumage 
between  an  adult  male  dusky  grouse  (Den- 
dragapus  obscurus)  and  an  adult  male 
Franklin's  grouse  (Canachites  franklini} ,  with 
the  skins  of  the  birds  before  him!  If  any 
of  the  sportsmen  who  read  these  articles 
are  of  the  immense  host  in  the  United  States, 
who  believe  that  Audubon  described  and 
figured  all  of  the  birds  in  North  America, 
without  making  a  single  error  of  any  kind,  I 
would  say  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing 
to  get  that  erroneous  idea  out  of  their  heads, 
if  they  ever  expect  to  gain  an  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  any  of  our  groups  of  birds,  the  game 
birds  included.  Audubon  did  not  see,  much 
less  describe  and  figure,  one  in  fifty  of  the 
birds  of  North  America;  the  text,  figures 
and  classification  of  his  work  are — each  and 
all — pregnant  with  errors;  and  had  it  not 
been  for  the  vastly  superior  knowledge  of 
the  distinguished  Scotch  ornithologist,  Wil- 
liam MacGillivray. — who  more  than  assisted 
him, — he  would  never  have  been  able  to 
get  out  the  text  matter  at  all.  Even  Mac- 
gillivray  did  not  have  the  opportunity  to 
see  but  a  comparatively  small  part  of 
Audubon's  MSS.  before  they  went  to 
press,  as  his  work  in  natural  science  practi- 
cally occupied  all  his  time  and  prevented 
him  from  doing  so.  He  was,  moreover, 
born  in  Aberdeen,  and  lived  and  died  there. 
Most  of  Audubon's  life  was  spent  in  this 
country. 

Of  the  Canachites  canadensis  series,  I  still 
have  to  describe  the  last  subspecific  form. 
This  is  the  Canada  spruce  grouse  (C.  c.  canace) 
Canace  was  the  daughter  of  ^Eolus,  the 
Greek  word  meaning  a  noise.  Figure  5, 
here  reproduced,  gives  a  beautiful  represen- 
tation of  the  male  and  female  of  this  bird — 
an  illustration  I  obtained  by  photograph- 
ing Plate  41,  of  Eaton's  "Birds  of  New 
York,"  the  original  having  been  made  by 
Mr.  Fuertes. 

The  Canada  spruce  grouse  ranges  through 
Manitoba,  southern  parts  of  Ontario  and 
New  Brunswick,  and,  within  the  boundaries 
of  the  United  States,  through  certain  regions 
of  New  England,  New  York  and  westward 
as  far  as  northern  Minnesota.  This  is  the 


Tetrao  canace  of  Linnaeus  (1766),  and  the 
common  Canada  grouse  of  such  writers  as 
Audubon  and  Coues,  which  last-named  bird 
with  them  includes  it.  In  the  case  of  this 
grouse  as  in  others,  the  females  are  smaller 
than  the  males,  the  length  for  the  two  being 
from  15  to  17  inches.  The  young  are  like 
the  hens. 

In  this  form  there  are  no  ruffs  on  the 
neck,  neither  is  the  head  crested;  the  usual 
bare  orange  spot  is  above  either  eye;  legs 
(tarsi)  are  feathered  to  the  toes,  which 
latter  have  the  horny,  comb-like  fringe 
on  their  sides  referred  to  above;  tail  feathers 
sixteen. 

In  the  male,  the  sides  and  upper  parts 
are  generally  wavy,  barred  with  gray  and 
black.  Beneath,  mostly  clear  black,  the 
feathers  being  tipped  with  white;  the  feath- 
ers of  the  otherwise  black  tail  are  also  tipped 
with  a  brownish-orange  of  an  ocherous  shade. 

Eaton  describes  the  female  of  this  species 
as  taken  in  New  York  State,  as  "quite 
uniformly  varied  with  ocherous,  gray  and 
blackish,  the  gray  appearing  as  a  veil  cast 
over  the  ocherous  and  blackish  bars;  under 
parts  with  white  feather  tips"  (p.  365). 
(Fig.  5,  the  sitting  bird). 

Finally,  we  have  in  this  genus  the  distinct 
species  Canachites  franklini,  —  Franklin's 
grouse.  This  elegant  bird  was  first  discovered 
by  Lewis  and  Clark  in  Idaho  in  1805,  but 
not  scientifically  named.  As  above  stated, 
it  was  again  discovered  by  David  Douglas 
in  the  then  territories  of  Washington  and 
Oregon,  who  named  it  Tetrao  franklini  after 
the  distinguished  Arctic  explorer,  Sir  John 
Franklin.  (Trans.  Linn.  Soc.  Lond.  Vol. 
xvi.  1829  p.  139).  Both  Swainson  and 
Bonaparte  have  given  us  figures  of  this 
species,  and  Figure  6  of  this  Part,  reproduced 
from  my  own  drawing  of  a  male  in  full 
plumage,  is  another  contribution  in  this 
direction. 

In  all  particulars,  Franklin's  grouse  has 
the  general  appearance  of  the  Canada 
grouse  described  above;  but  in  its  range,  it 
is  restricted  to  the  central  parts  of  British 
Columbia,  southern  Alaska,  and  the  western 
regions  of  central  Alberta.  From  these 
parts  it  ranges  southward  through  the  forest 
districts  of  northern  Oregon,  central  Idaho, 
and  the  forested  regions  of  the  western  parts 
of  Montana.  Personally,  I  have  shot  this 
grouse  in  the  extreme  lower  part  of  its  range 
in  Montana. 

As  will  be  observed  in  Figure  6.  the  tail 
is  relatively — as  well  as  actually — longer 
than  it  is  in  the  Canada  grouse,  and  the 
white  tips  to  the  broader  feathers  are  very 
scant.  Moreover,  distally,  the  tail  in  Frank- 
lin's grouse  is  nearly  even,  and  it  lacks  the 


Fig.  6. — Franklin's   grouse  (Canachites  'ranklini).      Reproduction  of  a  painting  made  by.^the  author. 


terminal  orange-brown  bar.  The  white  tips 
to  the  outer  row  of  feathers  of  the  upper 
coverts  lend  to  the  superior  aspect  of  the 
tail  a  decided  spotted  appearance,  especially 
when  the  bird  is  at  rest,  as  shown  in  Fig.  6. 

Having  a  knowledge  of  its  range  and  the 
above  characters,  one  will  have  no  trouble 
in  distinguishing  a  Franklin's  grouse  of  the 
genus  from  the  Canada  grouse,  or,  indeed, 
from  any  other  Canachites. 

Few  of  our  grouse  are  better  known  to 
our  sportsmen  than  those  grouped  in  the 
genus  Bonasa,  which  contains  the  ruffed 
grouse;  yet  there  is  not  one  hunter  in  a  hundred 
in  this  country  who_is_aware_of  the  fact  that 


we  have  several  sub-species  of  this  elegant 
bird. 

Bonasa  umbellus,  owing  to  the  presence 
of  its  peculiar  spreading  neck-tufts,  gets 
its  specific  name  from  a  Latin  word  having 
reference  to  an  umbrella  (umbel);  note 
also  umbra  a  shadow  or  shade,  used  in  many 
senses. 

B.  umbellus  occurs  in  certain  localities 
where  suitable  forests  exist,  in  Alaska  and 
Canada,  and  southward  to  California,  Colo- 
rado, Kansas  and  Tennessee.  In  the  East 
it  is  found  in  the  Alleghanies,  as  far  south 
as  Georgia. 


Fig.  7. — Ruffed  grouse  (B.  u.  umbellus).     Reproduction  of  a  photograph  from  life  by  Professor  C.  F.  Hodge. 


The  type  species,  B.  umbellus  umbellus  or 
the  ruffed  grouse,  ranges  over  the  eastern 
United  States  from  southern  New  York 
westward  through  Michigan  and  Minnesota. 
On  the  Atlantic  side,  from  southern  Vermont 
to  northern  Georgia,  including  Virginia; 
thence  westward,  we  find  it  in  eastern 
Kansas,  northern  Arkansas  and  Tennessee. 
Throughout  the  New  England  part  of  its 
range,  it  is  very  generally  known  as  the 
"Partridge,"  while  in  the  middle  and  southern 
states,  it  is  everywhere  called  the  "Pheasant." 
It  has  some  nine  or  ten  vernacular  names, 
which  are  not  worth  our  while  to  record. 
Much  confusion  would  be  avoided  if  the 
birds  could  be  called  "Ruffed  grouse"  every- 
where, simply  stating,  as  occasion  required, 
whether  the  Canada,  the  Gray,  or  the 
Oregon  ruffed  grouse  was  in  question. 

In  Figure  7  of  this  Part,  we  have  a  repro- 
duction of  a  photograph  of  the  ruffed  grouse 
(B.  u.  umbellus),  taken  from  life  by  Professor 
C.  F.  Hodge  of  Clark  College,  Worcester, 
Massachusetts,  who  presented  it  to  me. 
The  bird  is  seen  to  be  "strutting,"  and  it 
doubtless  formed  the  model  for  Fuertes' 
colored  figure  in  Eaton's  "Birds  of  New 
York."  (Plate  41). 

Figure  8  is  another  of  Professor  Hodge's 
photographs  reproduced;  it  is  probably  the 


same  bird  (male)  "day-dreaming"  on  a  log, 
and  it  is  an  interesting  picture. 

Figure  9  gives  the  skins  of  various  speci- 
mens of  ruffed  grouse, — a  cut  I  obtained  by 
photography  from  an  illustration  in  Eaton's 
"Birds  of  New  York,"  (p.  372).  It  will  be 
seen  that  these  four  grouse  skins  were  taken 
as  they  rested  on  a  plane  surface  on  their 
backs.  They  are  of  "Bonasa  umbellus  from 
New  York  State,  showing  graduation  from 
B.  u.  umbellus  on  the  right  (Bergen,  Genessee 
County),  to  B.  u.  togata  on  the  left  (Upper  Au- 
sable  Lake) .  The  intermediates  are  from  Sara- 
toga County  and  southern  Ontario  County." 
(Compare  also  with  Fig.  2  of  Part  I).  These 
birds  produce  their  "drumming"  by  rapidly 
whirring  their  wings,  neither  of  the  latter  coming 
in  contact  with  anything.  Most  of  the  ruffed 
grouse  I  have  shot  were  met  with  in  New 
England  (Conn.)  and  were  B.  umbellus, 
wherein  the  upper  parts  are  variegated  with 
grayish  or  reddish  brown,  which,  on  the 
back,  is  spotted  all  over  with  pale,  oblong, 
black-edged  spots.  The  under  parts  are 
more  or  less  white  and  transversely  barred 
with  pale  brown.  The  brown  or  gray  tail  is 
tipped  with  the  latter  color,  and  is  otherwise 
marked  with  many  transverse,  narrow,  black 
bars,  the  sub-terminal  broad  one  being  also 
black.  At  the  neck,  the  "ruffs"  are  either 


Fig.  8. — Ruffed  grouse  (B.  u.  umbellus).     Reproduction  of  a  photograph  from  life  by  Professor  C.  F.  Hodge. 


black  or  brownish  black,  being  smaller  and 
browner  in  the  hen.  In  the  male,  it  has  a 
steel-blue  or  dark  greenish  iridescence. 
'"'With  this  description  before  one  and 
knowing  the  range — taken  in  connection 
with  the  cuts  presented — almost  anyone 
would  be  able  to  identify  a  ruffed  grouse. — 
that  is,  Bonasa  u.  umbellus.  This  says 
nothing  for  the  subspecies — that's  another 
affair — and  we  will  take  those  up  at  the 
close  of  the  article.  Before  doing  so,  how- 
ever, it  will  be  of  interest  to  cite  a  few  obser- 
vations of  other  ornithologists  upon  the  type 
species  now  being  considered. 

Wilson,  who  gives  a  long  and  very  inter- 
esting account  of  this  bird,  says  "Dr.  Turton 
and  several  other  English  writers,  have 
spoken  of  a  Long-tailed  Grouse,  said  to 
inhabit  the  back  parts  of  Virginia,  which 
can  be  no  other  than  the  present  species, 
there  being,  as  far  as  I  am  acquainted,  only 
these  two,,  the  Ruffed  and  Pinnated  grouse 
found  native  within  the  United  States." 

At  the  present  writing,  there  are  between 
thirty  and  forty  kinds  known,  which  includes 
the  Alaskan  forms. 

As  part  of  a  very  accurate  description, 
Wilson  further  says,  "The  Pheasant,  or 
Partridge,  of  New  England,  is  eighteen 
inches  long,  and  twenty-three  in  extent; 
bill,  a  horn  color,  paler  below;  eye,  reddish 
hazel,  immediately  above  which  is  a  small 
spot  of  bare  skin,  of  a  scarlet  color;  crested; 


head  and  neck  variegated  with  black,  red, 
brown,  white,  and  pale  brown;  sides  of  the 
neck  furnished  with  a  tuft  of  large,  black 
feathers,  twenty-nine  or  thirty  in  number, 
which  it  occasionally  raises;  this  tuft  covers 
a  large  space  of  the  neck  destitute  of  feathers; 
*****  the  legs  are  covered  half 
way  to  the  feet  with  hairy  down  of  a  brownish 
white  color;  legs  and  feet  pale  ash;  toes 
pectinated  along  the  sides;  the  two  exterior 
ones  joined  at  the  base,  as  far  as  the  first 
joint,  by  a  membrane;  vent  yellowish  rust 
color." 

Ridgway,  who  describes  the  downy  young, 
etc.,  gives  the  length  as  15.50  to  19  inches, 
(Manual,  p.  197)  or  an  inch  more  than 
Wilson's  measurement.  We  know  that  the 
hen  is  considerably  smaller  than  the  cock 
bird.  He  further  states  in  the  same  place 
that  in  the  female  "the  neck- tufts  are 
rudimentary  or  obsolete." 

Coues,  in  the  last  edition  (5th,  p.  741)  of 
his  "Key,"  agrees  with  Wilson  in  the  size 
of  B.  umbellus  and  says,  among  other  things, 
"Young  of  both  sexes  sufficiently  resemble 
the  adults  to  be  unmistakable,  and  detailed 
description  of  every  feather  would  be  tedious 
and  profitless.  Chicks  in  down  are  very 
pretty,  being  of  various  buff  shades  deepen- 
ing on  some  parts  into  chestnut,  with  a  black 
stripe  on  each  side  of  the  head.  There  is  a 
sort  of  dichromatism  in  this  species,  somewhat 
like  that  of  the  red  and  gray  Megascops  owls, 


358 


The  Outer's  Book 


some  individuals  being  browner,  others 
grayer,  than  the  average;  but  this  is  irre- 
spective of  age,  sex,  season  or  locality,  does 
not  in  the  least  correspond  with  the  pre- 
tended geographical  distribution  of  the  sub- 
species togata,  which  some  late  grouse- 
fanciers  have  sought  to  establish,  and  I 
cannot  imagine  myself  humoring  such  a 
whim  in  the  "Key."  We  have  quite  enough 
to  do  in  making  out  umbelloides  to  be  sub- 
specifically  different." 

Eaton,  in  the  "Birds  of  New  York"  (p.  367) 
states,  "This  species,  like  the  Screech  Owl, 
exhibits  a  kind  of  dichromatism,  some 
specimens  having  a  prevailing  rufous,  or 
reddish  brown  color  of  the  upper  parts, 
especially  the  tail,  and  others  a  prevailing 
gray,  which  is  not  by  any  means  confined 
to  the  subspecies  togata,  but  is  exhibited  by 
southern  birds  as  well,  both  types  of  color 
often  occurring  in  the  same  brood."  This 
offsets  what  Coues  had  to  say  about  B.  u. 
togata,  and  properly  so.  Coues,  in  giving 
his  description  of  birds,  was  only  too  often 
influenced  by  his  moods. 

Audubon  tells  us  that  the  "drumming"  of 
the  ruffed  grouse  is  produced  as  it  "beats 
its  sides  with  its  wings  in  the  manner  of  the 
domestic  cock,  but  more  loudly,  and  with 
such  rapidity  of  motion,  after  a  few  of  the 
first  strokes,  as  to  cause  a  tremor  in  the  air 
not  unlike  the  rumbling  of  distant  thunder." 
I  was  under  the  impression  that  "a  tremor" 
was  a  vibratory  movement,  and  not  a  noise 
of  any  kind. 

Audubon  is  much  nearer  the  truth  when 
he  states,  in  regard  to  the  ruffed  grouse,  that 
"A  remarkable  difference  of  plumage  is 
observed  in  specimens  from  the  opposite 
parts  of  the  continent,  those  from  the  eastern 
districts  being  invariably  much  greyer, 
especially  on  the  tail-feathers,  than  those 
procured  along  the  Ohio,  or  in  Virginia. 
These  constant  differences  have  tempted 
some  persons  to  suppose  that  we  have  two 
nearly  allied  species,  instead  of  one;  but 
after  the  closest  examination  of  all  their 
parts,  as  well  as  of  their  habits,  I  never 
could  find  anything  tending  to  support  this 
supposition."  (Vol.  v.  p.  81). 

I  have  already  given  above  the  range  of 
B.  u.  umbellus,  and  the  following  are  the  ranges 
of  the  three  remaining  subspecies  as  given 
by  the  A.  0.  U.  "Check-List"  (1912). 

Bonasa  umbellus  togata.  Canada  Ruffed 
Grouse. — "Range :  Central  Keewatin,  south- 
ern Ungava,  and  Nova  Scotia  south  to 
Manitoba,  southern  Michigan,  northern 
Vermont,  New  Hampshire,  and  Maine, 
and  in  the  mountains  of  New  York,  western 


Massachusetts,  and  northern  Connecticut; 
birds  indistinguishable  from  the  eastern 
form  occur  from  east  central  British  Colum- 
bia south  to  eastern  Oregon  and  central 
Idaho. 

Bonasa  umbellus  umbelloides.  Gray  Ruffed 
Grouse. — "Range:  Norton  Sound,  Alaska, 
east  to  central  Yukon  and  west  central 
Mackensie,  and  south  to  northern  Utah, 
northern  Colorado,  and  western  South 
Dakota." 

Bonasa  umbellus  sabini.  Oregon  Ruffed 
Grouse.— "Range:  Coast  ranges  from  south- 
ern Alaska  to  Humboldt  County,  Cali- 
fornia." 

It  must  be  remembered  and  distinctly 
understood  that  these  three  subspecies,  at 
their  limited  boundaries  of  their  several 
ranges,  by  insensible  degrees  shade  into 
each  other,  which  statement  includes  B. 
umbellus  umbellus.  On  this  point  Eaton 
remarks,  "It  is  impossible  to  draw  definitely 
the  boundary  between  the  ruffed  grouse  proper 
(umbellus')  and  the  Canadian  ruffed  grouse 
(tagota),  as  there  is  a  continual  gradation 
from  the  birds  of  southern  New  York  to 
those  of  the  Adirondack  forests,  which  are 
certainly  of  the  subspecies  togata.  Birds  from 
the  highlands  of  eastern  and  western  New 
York  are  intermediate  between  the  two" 
("Birds  of  New  York,"  p.  367).  (See  Fig.  9). 

Ruffed  grouse  from  the  Adirondacks  are 
typical  of  the  Canada  ruffed  grouse  (B.  u. 
togata)  and  they  are  of  the  same  size  as 
umbellus.  They  are  much  darker  in  color, — 
particularly  is  it  to  be  noticed  that  the 
transverse  barring  of  the  parts  beneath  are 
so.  These  markings  are  dusky  across  the 
breast,  passing  to  black  as  we  pass  over  the 
flanks  on  either  side.  All  the  edgings  of 
the  feathers  in  these  localities  are  black  or 
blackish.  Above,  the  bird  inclines  to  be 
grayish,  the  upper  part  of  the  tail  being,  in 
fact,  a  clear  gray  color. 

Coues,  in  describing  the  plumage  of  the 
gray  ruffed  grouse  (B.  u.  umbelloides)  says 
of  the  male  bird,  "Lower  back,  rump,  upper 
tail-coverts  and  tail  slate-gray,  with  little 
if  any  brown  tinge;  the  feathers  of  the  back 
and  rump  with  light  gray  cordate  or  arrow- 
headed  spots,  narrowly  bordered  with  black; 
tail-feathers  finely  vermiculated  with  black, 
and  with  a  broad,  subterminal  black  zone. 
Ruffle  glossy  greenish-black.  Under  parts 
whitish,  more  or  less  tinged  with  tawny-brown, 
with  several  broad  brown  cross-bars  on  each 
feather,  largest  and  most  distinct  on  long 
feathers  of  sides,  some  of  -which  have  also 
white  shaft  -lines;  heavy  feathers  of  flanks 
and  vent  mostly  whitish,  unmarked.  Feath- 


Fig.  9. — Skins  of  Bonasa  (umbellus  and  tngata).     By  the  author  after  Eaton. 


ers  of  fore-neck  and  scapulars  blended  with 
gray,  rich  reddish-brown,  ochrey-brown,  and 
white  in  indescribable  confusion.  Most  of 
the  wing-coverts  with  white  shaft-lines.  Hen 
with  ruffle  less  developed  varied  with 
brown  and  white.  General  tone  more  rufous 
than  in  the  cock."  ("Key."  5th  Edition, 
pp.  742,  743.) 

The  Oregon  ruffed  grouse  is  named  for 
J.  Sabine,  B.  umbellus  sabini,  and  its  dis- 
covery and  rediscovery  by  David  Douglas 
is  interesting  in  American  grouse  history, 


but  has  little  to  do  with  up  to  date  indenti- 
fication. 

This  subspecies  more  closely  resembles 
B.  u.  umbellus,  but  the  brown  shades  in  it 
are  darker  and  more  extensive  than  in  the 
latter  form.  In  fact,  the  color  is  more  ele- 
gant and  far  richer.  In  some  parts  of  the 
plumage  it  approaches  a  chestnut  shade, 
glossy  and  handsome,  which  passes  to  black- 
ish in  the  browns.  These  are  only  the  typical 
examples,  however,  from  the  center  of  the 
range,  as  pointed  out  above. 


Time  Wrought  Modifications  of  the  Hunt- 
ing Knife 

By  R.  A.  KANE 
PART  II 

WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM  PHOTOGRAPHS  AND  DRAWINGS. 


another  occasion  I  was 
still-hunting  in  the  edge  of 
the  green  wood  which 
marked  the  limits  of  the 
broad  expanse  of  burnt 
district.  It  was  good 
deer  country,  and  I  was 
momentarily  expecting  to 
get  a  standing  shot  or  to 
see  the  flash  of  white  that  would  be  the 
signal  for  action  on  my  part.  While  step- 
ping cautiously  along  and  peering  care- 
fully in  every  direction,  I  was  suddenly 
startled  by  the  vicious  crack  of  a  high  power 
rifle  on  my  left  and  seemingly  but  a  few  rods 
distant.  Instinctively  I  sprang  forward  to 
the  inviting  shelter  of  the  trunk  of  a  green 
hemlock,  placing  it  between  me  and  the 
direction  from  which  the  sound  had  come. 
The  reason  for  my  sudden  and  unpremeditated 
action  will  be  clear  to  those  of  our  readers 
who  will  remember  that  there  is  no .  closed 
season  on  hunters  in  Wisconsin  and  Michigan. 
I  stood  edgewise  to  the  trunk  of  the  tree, 
hugging  it  closely.  As  soon  as  my  wits  were 
in  working  order,  I  yelled  lustily,  though 
nervously  to  apprise  the  shooter  of  my  prox- 
imity. He  answered  promptly  with  the 
woodsman's  hail  (a  full  mouthed  call)  ending 
with  a  clear  far  sounding  whoop.  In  less  than 
a  minute  the  invisible  hunter  emerged  from 
behind  a  cluster  of  young  balsams,  and  as 


A  YOUNG  HUNTER'S  KNIFE,  WITH  HANDLE  OF 
LEG  BONE  FROM  FAWN 


he  approached  said,  "Guess  you  jumped  him 
for  me." 

"  'Jue  get  him?" 

"Sure." 

"Bully  for  you,"  and  together  we  walked 
a  distance  of  about  fifty  yards  to  where  a 
fine  young  buck  lay  with  a  .30-30  through 
his  neck. 

"Got  him  standin'  when  he  was  listening 
on  his  back  track"  explained  the  stripling 
hunter. 


It  was  a  mild  November  day  and  as  he 
wore  no  coat,  I  noticed  that  lie  apparently 
carried  neither  belt  or  hunting  knife,  and 
that  his  supply  of  cartridges  was  carried 
in  the  hip  pocket  of  his  mackinaw  trousers 
in  the  original  card-board  box.  Resting  his 
rifle  against  a  convenient  tree  he  proceeded 
to  dress  his  game  with  the  most  unique 
specimen  of  cutlery  that  was  ever  carried 
by  a  .sportsman.  The  blade  was  shaped  like 
that  of  a  cobbler's  knife,  exactly  like  the  ones 
we  have  seen  used  by  the  spectacled  village 
shoemaker  to  trim  the  sole,  and  which  was 
sharpened  ever  and  anon  on  a  fragment  of 
coarse  grindstone,  or  a  sheet  of  sandpaper, 
tacked  to  his  work  bench.  The  young  hunter's 
blade  was  less  than  three  inches  in  length, 
its  back  straight,  and  the  edge  curved  sharply 
from  handle  to  point.  A  strong  tang  about 
equal  in  length  to  the  blade  was  left  for  the 
handle,  and  upon  this  was  tightly  driven 
about  3£  inches  of  the  leg  bone  of  a  fawn, 
the  enlargement  at  the  joint  forming  a  sort 
of  natural  guard  for  the  hand.  As  he  pro- 
ceeded with  the  work  of  dressing  his  game, 
I  watched  him  with  considerable  interest  as 
I  was  curious  to  know  what  sort  of  a  job 
could  be  done  with  such  an  inferior  looking 
tool.  He  first  made  a  small  incision  at  the 
throat,  not  longer  than  the  width  of  his 
blade,  then  cutting  latterly  under  the  skin, 
he  severed  the  jugular,  windpipe  and  gullet. 
After  neatly  circling  the  vent  of  the  body 
with  the  slender  point  of  his  knife,  he  made 
an  incision  about  five  inches  long  extending 
back  from  the  navel,  then  inserting  his  fore- 
arm into  the  opening  thus  made,  with  a  few 
dexterous  cuts  of  his  short  blade,  the  dia- 
phragm and  other  natural  adhesions  were  cut 
away,  while  heart,  liver,  lungs,  as  well  as 
the  baser  parts  were  easily  withdrawn,  from 
front  and  rear.  When  assisting  my  young 
friend  to  hang  the  deer  for  drainage,  I  noticed 
that  there  was  scarcely  a  stain  on  the  beauti- 
full  snow  white  hair  of  the  under  parts,  and 
there  was  practically  none  of  the  meat  ex- 
posed to  tempt,  either  predatory  birds  or 
animals.  I  had  learned  something  new  about 
the  hunting  knife. 

Notwithstanding  the  countless  number  of 
hunting  knives  manufactured  by  our  great 


Fig.   10.     Willow  ptarmigan   or  grouse   (L.  1.  lagopus.)    Male   bird  standing;   female  sitting   with   chicks.     Repro- 
duction of  a  photograph  made  by  the  author  of  Audubon's  plate. 


The  American  Grouse  and  Their  Identi- 
fication 

By  DR.  R.  W.  SHUFELDT 

PTARMIGANS,  PRAIRIE  CHICKENS  AND  THE  HEATH  HEN 
PART  III 

WITH   ILLUSTRATIONS    FROM    DRAWINGS   AND    PHOTOGRAPHS    BY   THE    AUTHOR 


F  we  regard  such  birds 
as  Richardson's,  Frank- 
lin's and  the  ruffed  grouse 
which  were  considered  in 
Parts  I  and  II  of  the 
present  article,  as  true 
grouse,  then  the  genus  of 
birds  first  to  be  dealt 
with  here,  namely  the 
ptarmigans  of  the  genus  Lagopus,  form  very 
distinct  departures  from  our  type  forms. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  has  only  been  through 


custom  that  we  have  regarded  such  a  species 
as  the  ruffed  grouse  to  be  a  true  game  bird 
called  grouse,  and  the  ptarmigans — forms 
considerably  away  from  such  an  elected 
standard — are  hardly  entitled  to  that  sort 
of  distinction.  In  reality,  however,  a  ptarmi- 
gan is  just  as  true  a  tetraonine  bird— even 
to  the  minutest  structural  detail — as  the 
finest  ruffed  grouse  that  ever  flushed  from 
cover,  or  the  best  cock  "prairie  chicken"  that 
pointer  ever  put  up  on  a  prairie. 

The   late   Dr.    R.   Bowdler   Sharpe   in   his 


Fig.  11.  Rock  ptarmigan  (Lagopus  r.  rupestris).  White  one  in  background,  male  in  winter;  the  one  looking  back 
is  a  female  in  summer  plumage;  the  bird  in  front  of  her  "young  in  August."  Reproduction  of  a  photograph  made 
by  the  author  of  Audubon's  plate. 


"Handlist  of  Birds"  gives  the  ptarmigans 
(Lagopus)  the  leading  place  in  the  family 
Tetraonida,  enumerating  14  species  of  them, 
11  of  which  occur  in  America,  and  the  others 
in  Europe  and  Asia, — the  type,  or  willow- 
ptarmigan  (L.  lagopus),  ranging  through 
the  northern  part  of  the  Northern  Hemi- 
sphere, and  consequently  is  common  to  both 
continents. 

In  some  localities,  these  ptarmigans  are 
known  as  snow  grouse,  as  they  are  of  both 
boreal  and  alpine  distribution,  and  in  moun- 
tain ranges  where  they  occur  are  found 
above  the  snow-line.  In  general  form  they 
resemble  the  spruce  grouse  of  the  genus 
Canachites,  and  probably  are  most  nearly 
related  to  them. 

Ptarmigans  have  three  moults  during  the 
year,  the  summer  plumage  being  different 
in  some  species  in  the  two  sexes.  Our  forms 
in  winter  are  pure  white,  some  species 
having  a  black  tail  and  a  black  stripe  from 
bill  to  eye  on  either  side.  (Fig.  11).  In 
shedding  their  feathers,  which  is  often  fre- 
quent and  rapid,  they  even  shed  the  horny 
coverings  to  the  claws, — a  process  that 
happens  periodically.  In  summer  they 
exhibit  a  great  variety  of  mottled  patterns 
of  plumage,  black,  browns  and  white  pre- 
vailing, with  various  tawny  shades.  In  all 
save  one  species,  the  subadults  shed  their 
brown  flight-feathers,  which  are  replaced  by 
white  ones,  and  these  and  many  other 
plumage  changes  in  this  genus  of  grouse 
render  the  matter  of  color  alone  a  somewhat 
unreliable  character  in  specific  distinctions. 


Coues  remarks:  "The  word  ptarmigan, 
with  an  unexplained  initial  p,  dating  back 
over  200  years,  is  from  the  Gaelic  tarmachan, 
supposed  to  mean  mountaineer,  and  was 
earlier  spelled  termigant,  termagant,  etc." 

We  have  a  long  list  of  ptarmigans  in  the 
avifauna  of  North  America,  and  some  of  the 
subspecies  are  confined  to  very  limited 
areas.  In  the  matter  of  their  appearance 
and  habits  they  are  much  alike,  so  we  can 
afford  to  slight  quite  a  number  of  them, 
simply  making  a  note  of  their  names  and 
existence. 

According  to  the  A.  O.  U.  "Check  List," 
their  ranges  are  as  follows: 

Lagopus  lagopus:  Range — Northern  part  of 
the  Northern  Hemisphere. 

L.  1.  lagopus:  Willow  ptarmigan.  Range — 
Arctic  regions.  In  America  breeds  from 
northern  Alaska,  northern  Banks  Land, 
and  central  Greenland  south  to  eastern 
Aleutian  Islands,  central  Mackensie  (in 
the  mountains  to  west  central  Alberta), 
central  Keewatin,  James  Bay,  and  southern 
Ungava;  south  in  winter  to  northern 
British  Columbia,  Saskatchewan  Valley, 
Minnesota,  Ontario  and  Quebec;  accidental 
in  Wisconsin,  Michigan,  New  York,  Maine 
and  Massachusetts. 

L.  1.  alleni:  Allen's  ptarmigan.  Range — 
Newfoundland. 

L.  I.  alexandre:  Alexander's  ptarmigan. 
Range — Barranoff  and  adjacent  islands 
west  to  Shumagin  Islands. 


The  American  Grouse  and  How  to  Distinguish  Them          467 


L.  I.  ungavus:  Ungava  ptarmigan.  Range— 
Ungava  and  probably  the  eastern  shore  of 
Hudson  Bay. 

Lagopus  rupestris:  Range — Northern  North 
America  and  Greenland. 

L.  r.  rupestris:  Rock  ptarmigan.  Range — 
Arctic  America.  Breeds  from  Melville 
Island  to  Melville  Peninsula  and  south  on 
the  Barren  Grounds  from  Alaska  to  Ungava; 
also  on  alpine  summits  south  to  central 
Yukon;  south  in  winter  to  southern  Massa- 
chusetts and  southern  Ungava. 

L.  r.  reinhardti:  Reinhardt's  ptarmigan. 
Range — Northern  extremity  of  Ungava, 
western  Cumberland  Sound,  and  Green- 
land. 

L.  r.  nclsoni:  Nelson's  ptarmigan.  Range— 
Unalaska,  Akutan  and  Unimark  Islands, 
Aleutian  Islands. 

L.  r.  atkhensis:  Turner's  ptarmigan.  Range 
— Atka,  one  of  the  Aleutian  Islands, 
Alaska. 

L.  r.  lownsendi:  Townsend's  ptarmigan. 
Range — Kiska,  one  of  the  Aleutian  Islands, 
Alaska. 

L.  r.  chamberlaini:    Adak  ptarmigan.    Range 

.  — Adak,  one  of  the  Aleutian  Islands, 
Alaska. 

L.  r.  dixoni:  Dixon's  ptarmigan.  Range— 
Islands  near  Sitka,  Alaska. 

Lagopus  evermanni:  Evermann's  ptarmigan. 
Range— Attu,  one  of  the  Aleutian  Islands, 
Alaska. 


Lagopus  welchi:    Welch's  ptarmigan. 
— Newfoundland. 


Range 


Lagopus  leucurus:  Range — Mountains  of 
Alaska  and  British  Columbia,  south  in  the 
Rocky  Mountains  to  New  Mexico. 
L.  I.  leucurus:  White-tailed  ptarmigan. 
Range — Rocky  mountains  from  northern 
British  Columbia  and  central  Alberta 
south  to  Vancouver  Island,  Washington, 
north-western  Montana,  Colorado,  and 
northern  New  Mexico. 

L.  1.  peninsularis:  Kenai  White-tailed  ptar- 
migan. Range — Alpine  summits  from 
central  Alaska,  northern  Yukon,  and  north- 
western Mackensie  south  to  Cook  Inlet 
region,  Kenai  Peninsula,  and  southern 
Yukon. 

At  certain  seasons  of  the  year  many  of 
our  sportsmen  hunt  through  Newfoundland, 
various  parts  of  the  Dominion  of  Canada, 
and  in  Alaska,  including  several  of  its  off- 
lying  islands.  During  such  trips',  they  are 
likely  to  meet  with  snow  grouse  or  ptarmigan, 
and  if  they  obtain  any  of  them,  they  are 
naturally  desirous  of  knowing  their  names 
or  the  species  they  may  represent. 

By  consulting  the  RANGES  given  in  the 
above  list,  quite  a  number  of  these  ptarmi- 
gans can  be  identified  at  once  from  their 
habitats, — that  is,  at  this  writing;  for,  later 
on,  other  species  or  subspecies  may  be 
discovered  in  one  or  more  of  the  same 
habitats.  However,  if  one  now  shoots  a 
ptarmigan  in  Newfoundland,  he  may  be 


the  author  from  the  plate  in  Nelson's  Report 


nelsoni);  male  in  spring.     Reproduction  of  a  photograph  made  by 


468 


The  Outer's  Book 


sure  that  he  has  a  specimen  of  Allen's  ptar- 
migan; or  one  in  Atka,  a  Turner's  ptarmigan, 
and  so  on  to  the  end  of  the  list.  It  will  not 
be  necessary  for  me,  then,  to  give  the  plum- 
ages or  other  differential  specific  characters 
of  all  these  birds,  and  I  shall  confine  myself 
to  a  few  of  those  of  more  general  distribu- 
tion which  may  occur  within  the  boundaries 
of  the  United  States,  exclusive  of  Alaska, 
touching  very  lightly  upon  some  of  the  forms. 

In  the  winter  time,  in  certain  localities, 
one  might  meet  with  the  willow  grouse  or 
ptarmigan  in  the  northeastern  part  of  the 
country,  but  never  south  of  northern  New 
York.  It  has  also  occurred  in  Minnesota. 
(Fig.  10).  The  bird  has  several  common 
names,  though  it  is  usually  called  a  willow 
or  a  white  grouse. 

As  in  all  ptarmigans,  its  feet  are  fully 
feathered,  and  there  is  no  black  stripe 
between  the  bill  and  eye.  In  winter  the 
plumage  is  pure  white  with  black  white- 
tipped  tail  which  is  composed  of  14  feathers. 
Several  of  the  outer  flight-feathers  of  the 
wings  have  black  shafts,  those  of  the  second- 
aries being  white.  In  the  summer  time, 
when,  the  plumage  of  this  species  is  not 
white,  no  detailed  description  will  answer  for 
all  the  plumages  it  assumes,  as  they  vary 
so  with  sex  and  age.  Nevertheless,  there 
can  be  no  trouble  in  identifying  a  willow 
grouse  in  any  of  these  stages. 

Males  in  the  summer  time  have  the  head 
and  fore-parts  of  an  elegant  rich  chestnut, 
designated  by  some  as  an  orange-brown. 
This  becomes  tawny  on  the  back,  rump  and 
beyond, — the  whole  being  more  or  less 
thickly  barred  with  black.  For  the  most 
part,  the  wings  and  all  the  plumage  below 
remains  white.  During  the  spring  and 
autumn,  as  these  changes  go  on,  the  bird 
has  a  pied  plumage  which  fits  no  special 
description.  Females  have  only  the  white 
and  is  lighter  colored  than  the  male,  the 
black  barring  being  more  uniform,  closer 
and  heavier. 

Length,  15-17  inches;  wing,  7.5  to  8,  and 
tail  about  5£  inches.  Chicks  of  this  species 
are  truly  beautiful  little  birds,  several  of 
them  being  here  shown  in  Figure  10. 

Wilson,  apparently,  never  met  with  any 
of  our  ptarmigan  or  snow  grouse,  and  there- 
fore does  not  mention  them  in  his  work. 

Audubon,  who  could  find  no  differences 
in  our  several  forms  of  ruffed  grouse  (Part  II), 
seemed  to  think — in  fact  did  think— that 
our  willow  ptarmigan,  or  some  other  species 
found  in  the  Old  World,  were  entirely  differ- 
ent birds,  and  consequently  named  ours  the 
American  ptarmigan  (Lagopus  americanus); 
whereas— as  nearly  every  one  knew  at  the 
time — the  birds  are  identical.  In  fact,  Audu- 


bon tangled-  up  the  rock  ptarmigan,  the 
present  species,  and  his  American  ptarmigan 
in  the  most  remarkable  manner  with  L. 
scoticus  and  L.  mutus!  He  could  not  even 
trust  his  own  figures;  for  he  says  in  Vol.  V 
of  his  work:  "At  the  same  time,  after  due 
consideration,  I  am  satisfied  that  the  bird 
figured  by  me  is  not  the  Common  Ptarmigan, 
although  it  presents  all  the  characters  of  the 
Rock  Grouse  or  Ptarmigan.  It  is  less  than 
the  Scotch  Ptarmigan,  and  its  wings  are 
much  shorter,  and  even  more  concave;  and 
in  these  respects  it  corresponded  with  the 
other  two  specimens,  [loaned  him  by  the 
Earl  of  Derby],  which,  however,  had  the 
plumage  pure  white,  with  the  exception  of 
the  tail-feathers  and  the  shafts  of  the  prim- 
aries. I  have  therefore  named  this  bird,  as 
a  species  distinct  from  either,  Lagopus  Ameri- 
canus."  (Pp.  119,  120).  The  birds  he 
examined  in  the  Museum  of  the  Andersonian 
Institution  marked  "Lagopus  vulgaris,  Ptar- 
migan, Melville's  Island,"  and  which  he 
claimed  to  be  his  Lagopus  americanus,  were 
evidently  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  at  least 
one  of  them — and  perhaps  all — -were  rock 
ptarmigans  (L.  rupestris  rupestris),  for  he 
says  himself  that  they  had  a  "black  band 
extending  from  the  bill  to  the  eye  and  behind 
it," — and  this  is  a  distinguishing  character 
of  the  rock  ptarmigans,  and  is  not  found  in 
the  willow  grouse  (Fig.  11).  So  far  as  I  am 
aware,  this  error  has  not  been  published 
before,  and  it  is  pointed  out  here  in  order 
that  students  of  Audubon — many  of  whom 
believe  that  he  never  made  any  mistakes — 
may  avoid  unnecessary  labor  in  demon- 
strating them. 

An  authority  at  hand  says  that  in  Allen's 
ptarmigan  "both  secondaries  and  primaries 
black-shafted,  and  these  and  some  of  the 
coverts  marked  on  their  webs  with  blackish," 
— otherwise  the  bird  is  like  the  willow  grouse. 

Coming  next  to  the  rock  ptarmigan 
(L.  rupestris),  (Fig.  11),  with  its  seven  sub- 
species, we  have  a  series  of  birds  that  do  not 
normally  come  within  the  boundaries  of 
the  United  States  proper,  and  can  only  claim 
places  in  our  avifauna  for  the  reason  that 
they  all,  with  the  exception  of  Reinhardt's 
ptarmigan,  occur  in  various  parts  of  Alaska 
and  her  off-lying  islands. 

In  the  white  winter  plumage,  the  rock 
ptarmigan  is  like  the  willow  grouse,  with  the 
above-mentioned  difference  that  there  is,  in 
the  former,  a  black  stripe  from  the  bill 
through  the  eye  on  either  side.  Rock  ptar- 
migans also  have  a  slenderer  bill  than  do 
willow  grouse.  Sometimes  the  female  lacks 
the  black  stripe  through  the  eye,  and  both 
sexes  are,  respectively,  smaller  than  the  male 
and  female  of  lagopus. 


Fig.  13.     White-tailed  ptarmigan  (Lagopus  I.  leucurus).     Male  and  female  in  winter  plumage.     Reproduction  of  a 
drawing  made  by  the  author.     Sexes  alike. 


Length  from  thirteen  to  fourteen  and 
three-quarter  inches. 

When  the  summer  plumage  is  complete, 
the  sexes  are,  in  the  main,  alike  again. 
Apart  from  the  wings  and  tail  it  is  barred 
with  dusky  brown  and  ochre  in  coarse,  wavy 
markings,  being  blotched  on  the  dorsum. 
Males,  beneath,  white. 

This  bird  gets  its  specific  name  from  the 
Latin  rupis,  a  rock, — rupestrine, — -hence  ru- 
pestris. 

Coues,  who  seemed  to  fail  to  appreciate 
the  subspecific  and  constant  characters  of 
some  of  the  American  ptarmigans,  says, 
when  speaking  of  the  range  of  the  rock 
ptarmigan,  "supposed  not  to  occur  from 
N.  Labrador  northward,  that  region  being 
prudently  reserved  for  L.  r.  reinhardti; 
allowed  on  those  Aleutian  Islands  which  are 
not  reserved  by  the  classifiers  for  some  other 
Rock  Ptarmigan."  Coues  was  never  in  the 
parts  of  the  country  of  which  he  speaks, 
while  the  ptarmigan  of  the  last  A.  O.  U. 
"Check-List"  have  been  accepted  every- 
where in  the  world,  and  compared  by  a  great 
many  expert  ornithologists.  Even  Coues 
himself  in  his  "Key"  admits  Reinhardt's, 
Nelson's,  Turner's,  Townsend's,  Welch's  and 
Evermann's  ptarmigans! 


Fig.  12,  illustrating  the  present  Part, 
gives  a  male  Nelson's  ptarmigan  in  full 
spring  plumage.  This  figure  appears  as 
Plate  X.  in  the  government  work  entitled 
"Report  upon  Natural  History  Collections 
made  in  Alaska  between  the  years  1877  and 
1881  by  Edward  W.  Nelson"  (Washington, 
D.  C.,  1887),  from  which  I  photographically 
copied  it.  That  excellent  report  contains 
detailed  descriptions  of  the  habits  and  vari- 
ous plumage  changes,  at  all  seasons,  of  the 
willow  ptarmigan,  the  rock  ptarmigan,  Nel- 
son's and  Turner's  ptarmigan.  Another 
government  report  (1886),  "Contributions 
to  the  Natural  History  of  Alaska,"  by  L.  M. 
Turner,  gives  additional  information  on  these 
three  grouse  with  colored  Plates  (III.  and 
IV.),  of  the  male  and  female  of  Turner's 
ptarmigan. 

Reinhardt's  rock  ptarmigan  agrees  with 
the  rock  ptarmigan;  but  the  male  of  the 
former  in  summer  is  "less  regularly  and  more 
finely  barred  above  on  a  grayish  brown 
ground."  (Coues). 

Female  Nelson  ptarmigans  cannot  be  dis- 
tinguished from  true  rupestris;  the  males  in 
summer  have  the  plumage  above  finely 
vermiculated  with  black  on  a  deep  umber- 
brown  ground,  while  the  lower  parts  are  the 


470 


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same,  except  that  the  ground-color  is  of  a 
tawny  shade, — a  few  black  feathers  being 
interspersed. 

So  it  goes  with  other  subspecies  of  these 
birds,  and  even  the  scientific  ornithologists 
can  easily  be  misled  and  make  mistakes  in 
identifying  the  majority  of  these  snow  grouse. 
So  it  will  be  just  as  well  to  remember  the 
caution  of,  Mr.  D.  G.  Elliot  in  his  "Game 
Birds  of  "North  America,"  when  he  says, 
"Comparisons  of  ptarmigans  should  be  made 
between  individuals  not  only  from  the  same 
locality,  but  also  taken  in  the  same  month, 
if  possible  the  same  day,  for  these  perplexing 
birds,  beirg  in  a  constant  state  of  moult,  a 
few  days  difference  in  their  time  of  capture 
exhibits  much  change  in  their  appearance, 
and  one  who  has  not  studied  them  carefully 
with  sufficient  material,  could  easily  be  led 
to  form  an  erroneous  opinion  regarding  the 
status  of  a  subspecific  or  even  a  specific 
form." 

As  I  have  said  above,  Welch's  ptarmigan 
is  a  well-marked  species  of  Newfoundland, 
and  Evermann's  ptarmigan  of  Attu,  Alaska, 
is  different  from  any  of  the  foregoing  forms 
(see  Fig.  3,  Part  I.).  It  is  found  only  upon 
the  Island  of  Attu. 

Grinnell,  in  describing  Dixon's  ptarmigan, 
says  that  it  resembles  Nelson's  in  the  cor- 
responding plumage,  but  is  much  darker; 
"in  extreme  blackness  of  coloration  nearly 
like  Lagopus  evermanni,  but  the  feathers  of 
chest  and  back  more  or  less  finely  vermicu- 
lated  with  hazel." 

The  Adak  ptarmigan  (L.  r.  chamberlaini) 
differs  but  slightly  from  Townsend's  ptarmi- 
gan. 

We  have  a  very  distinct  species  in  the 
white-tailed  ptarmigan  or  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tain snow  grouse  (L.  leucurus  leucurus)  which 
I  here  portray  in  Fig.  13,  drawn  from  speci- 
mens in  the  collections  of  the  U.  S.  National 
Museum.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  recognizing 
this  bird — specimens  of  which  have  been  sent 
me  in  the  flesh  from  Colorado  by  Mr.  Robert 
B.  McLeod  of  Leadville — it  being  rearer 
mutus  of  the  Old  World  than  it  is  to  our  rock 
ptarmigan.  Both  the  male  and  the  female 
are  pure  white  in  winter.  In  summer, 
the  white  persists  in  the  lower  part  of  the 
breast,  the  wings  and  the  tail  white,  the 
remainder  of  the  plumage — differing  some- 
what in  nearly  every  specimen — is  minutely 
variegated  with  grayish,  brown,  tan,  and 
black  and  white. 

There  is  but  one  good  subspecies  known 
of  the  white-tailed  ptarmigan,  namely  the 
Kenai  white-tailed  ptarmigan  of  Alaska  as 
given  above.  Mr.  Chapman,  who  first  de- 
scribed this  form  (Bull.  Am.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist, 
xvi,  1902,  236),  says,  "nuptial  plumage 


differs  from  corresponding  phase  of  plumage 
of  L.  leucurus  in  having  the  black  areas  of 

Greater  extent,  the  buff  areas  much  paler, 
n  fall,  transition  or  "preliminary"  plumage 
differs  from  similarly  plumaged  specimens 
of  L.  leucurus  in  being  decidedly  grayer." 

This  is  all  I  intend  to  say  here  about  our 
ptarmigans  or  snow  grouse.  Sportsmen  will 
appreciate — from  what  I  have  collected 
together  for  them  above — that  they  are  a 
very  difficult  group  of  birds  to  study, 
especially  to  indentify  the  many  forms  of 
them  in  the  great  and  puzzling  differences 
of  the  plumages,  particularly  when  taking 
the  two  sexes,  the  seasons  and  ages  into 
consideration.  However,  there  is  a  good 
insight  into  the  group  given  here,  which, 
with  a  knowledge  of  their  distribution — 
also  given — and  the  figures  presented,  ought 
to  assist  almost  any  one  interested  in  our 
grouse  to  make  a  correct  identification;  if  it 
does  this  much,  my  labor  will  not  have  been 
in  vain. 

We  next  have  to  deal  with  an  elegant 
genus  of  American  grouse,  the  genus  Tym- 
panuchus.  known  to  hunters  everywhere  as 
the  prairie  hens  or  prairie  chickens.  There 
are,  in  the  United  States,  three  species  of 
these,  with  two  subspecies  included  in  the 
first  one.  In  the  A.  O.  U.  "Check-List" 
they  are  arrayed  thus: 

Tympanuchus  americanus:  Range — Central 
North  America  from  southern  central 
Canada  south  to  northern  Texas  to  east 
(formerly)  Ohio. 

Tympanuchus  americanus  americanus:  Prai- 
rie chicken.  Range — Southeastern  Saskat- 
chewan and  southern  Manitoba  to  eastern 
Colorado,  northeastern  Texas,  Arkansas, 
western  Kentucky,  and  Indiana;  probably 
extinct  east  of  Indiana,  but  formerly 
reached  southwestern  O.itario,  Michigan, 
and  northwestern  Ohio. 

TympuniH'hus  amrricunus  atlwateri:  Att- 
water's  Prairie  Chicken.  Range — -Coast 
region  of  Texas  and  southwestern  Louisiana. 

Tympanuchus  cupido:  Heath  Hen.  Range — 
Island  of  Martha's  Vineyard,  Massachu- 
setts. Formerly  southern  New  England 
and  parts  of  the  Middle  States. 

TympatmcktU  pallidicinctus:  Lesser  prairie 
chicken.  Range — Great  plains,  from  Kan- 
sas south  to  west  central  Texas. 

The  deriviation  and  meaning  of  the  word 
Tympanuchus  has  already  been  given  in 
I'art  I  of  this  series;  the  meaning  of  ameri- 
(iintis  is  self-evident,  and  attwatcri  is  for 
Mr.  H.  P.  Attwater,  to  whom  Bendire 
dedicated  the  subspecies. 


Fig.  14.  Prairie  Chicken  (Tympanuckus  «.  americe**s).  Two  males  contesting  for  female,  the  latter  with  head 
pressed  against  the  ground.  Xote  that  she  has  no  crest  or  neck-tufts.  Reproduction  of  a  photograph  made  by  the 
author  of  Audubon's  plate. 


Cupido  suggests  the  wings  of  the  conven- 
tional cupid,  which  are  here  likened  to  the 
feather-tufts  on  the  necks  of  all  birds  of 
this  genus.  For  pallidicinctus  we  have  the 
Latin  pallidus,-  pale  or  pallid,  and  cinctus, 
encircled,  begirdled  or  begirt,  and  bestowed 
upon  this  species  by  Ridgway,  probably  for 
the  reason  that  in  its  plumage  he  saw  a 
pallid  girdle  of  some  kind,  as  expressed  in 
this  part  of  his  description  of  the  bird: 
"Darker  bars  of  back  and  rump,  treble, 
consisting  of  a  perfectly  continuous  brown 
bar  enclosed  between  two  narrower  black 
bars;  darker  bars  of  sides  and  flanks  .25, 
or  less,  wide,  bicolored.  the  broader  light  - 
brown  bar  being  enclosed  between  two 
narrower  dusky  ones."  (Manual,  p.  203). 

In  1S(>8.  when  I  hunted  in  Illinois,  the 
prairie  hens  were  fairly  abundant  in  that 
state,  and  1  shot  them  within  two  miles  of 
the  city  of  Omaha,  Nebraska,  in  Is7',i. 
(Fig.  14). 

Typical  americanus  has  been  described  by 
a  great  many  ornithologists  and  popular 
writers;  and,  as  the  colors  and  arrangement 
of  the  pattern  of  the  plumage  are  very 
variable  and  complicated,  thes^  descrip- 
tions are,  in  most  instances,  quite  different. 


As  Audubon  said  of  this  species,  "T.cupido"1 
that  "The  female  is  considerably  smaller, 
and  wants  the  crest,  cervical  tufts,  and 
air-bags,  but  in  other  respects  resembles  the 
male"  (Vol.  v.,  p.  105), — a  statement  of 
which  more  than  half  is  utterly  erroneous,  as 
the  female  has  both  crest  and  tufts,  so  we 
need  not  consider  his  idea  of  the  bird  at  all. 
His  long  account  of  this  grouse  refers  to  T. 
americanus  and  not  to  T.  cupido,  as  he  has  it, 
for  it  is  based  on  Kentucky  specimens,  although 
he  collected  both  species.  Audubon,  assisted 
by  "several  negroes,"  used  to  bag  dozens  of 
them  at  night  just  for  the  sake  of  "amuse- 
ment." (loc.  cit.,  p.  98). 

Wilson  also  gives  us  a  long  account  of  the 
"Pinnated  Grouse, — Tetrao  cupido"  which 
he  illustrated  with  a  figure  of  a  male,  drawn 
from  a  specimen  taken  in  the  "Barrens  of 
Kentucky."  In  his  day  (1810)  the  bird  was 
common  around  Oyster  Bay,  Huntington, 
Islip,  etc.,  on  Long  Island  and  in  New  Jersey, 
etc.  He  also  says  of  this  bird — which  is 
the  present  Heath  Hen  (T.  cupido}  of  Martha's 
Vineyard,  Mass. — "The  female  is  consider- 
ably less;  of  a  lighter  color,  destitute  of  the 
neck  wings,  the  naked,  yellow  skin  on  the 
neck,  and  the  semi-circular  comb  of  yellow 


472 


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over  the  eye."  (Amer.  Ornithol.  Brewers'  ed. 
1852,  p.  264). 

Ridgway,  in  his  "Manual,"  (1887)  gives 
the  "Common  characters"  of  the  genus 
Tympanuchus  on  p.  202;  and  although  he 
does  not  there  mention  the  cervical  air-sacs 
of  those  grouse  as  a  character,  we  do  find 
the  following:  "Adult  male:  Sides  of  neck 
with  an  erectile  tuft  of  rather  stiff  elongated 
feathers,  the  longest  of  which  are  2.50  or 
more  in  length;  *  *  Adult  female:  Neck 
tufts  rudimentary,  the  longest  feathers  not 
more  (usually  much  less)  than  2.00  in  length." 

This  covers  americanus,  cupido  and  palli- 
dicinctus, — that  is,  in  all  of  these  grouse,  the 
females  possess  "neck-tufts,"  which  may  be 
at  least  two  inches  in  length, — Audubon  and 
Wilson  to  the  contrary. 

With  respect  to  the  plumage,  Ridgway,  in 
giving  the  common  characters  of  Tympa- 
nuchus, says,  "Above  brownish,  barred 
(sometimes  spotted  also)  with  dusky  and 
buff;  beneath  white  broadly  barred  or  banded 
with  brown;  quills  brownish  gray,  their 
outer  webs  spotted  with  buff  or  whitish; 
chin,  throat  and  cheeks  buff,  the  last  marked 
with  a  cluster  of  brown  or  dusky  spots;  a 
dark  brown  stripe  on  side  of  head,  from 
corner  of  mouth  beneath  eye  and  across 
upper  part  of  ear-coverts;  above  this  a  buff 
stripe,  interrupted  above  the  eye," — and,  in 
characterizing  americanus,  "Darker  bars  of 
back  'and  rump  single,  very  broad,  solid 
black;  brown  bars  on  sides  and  flanks  .30  or 
more  wide,  unicolored." 


The  sexes  are  nearly  alike,  the  male  being 
the  larger,  of  the  following  measurements: 
Length,  16  to  18  inches;  extent,  28;  wing,  8 
to  9  inches;  tail,  about  4|.  Modern  writers 
have  been  very  full  in  describing  the  length, 
number  and  form  of  the  neck-tufts  in  Tympa- 
nuchus; but  not  one  of  them  states— so  far 
as  I  can  find — what  the  color  of  them  is. 
Wilson,  in  his  quaint  way,  says  of  these, 
"the  neck  is  furnished  with  supplemental 
wings,  each  composed  of  eighteen  feathers, 
five  of  which  are  black,  and  about  three 
inches  long;  the  rest  shorter,  also  black, 
streaked  laterally  with  brown,  and  of  unequal 
lengths."  (T.  americanus:  Kentucky). 

Ridgway  says  that  in  the  heath  hen  (T. 
cupido)  the  "neck-tufts  of  adult  male  com- 
posed of  not  more  than  ten  lanceolate, 
pointed  feathers,"  and  in  the  lesser  prairie 
hen  (T.  pallidicinctus) ,  "Neck-tufts  of  adult 
male  with  feathers  broad  and  rounded  at 
tips,  as  in  T.  americanus." 

A  good-sized  prairie  hen  weighs  about  3| 
pounds — -the  smaller  subspecies  less. 

Bendire's  description  of  Attwater's  prairie 
chicken  (T.  a.  attwateri)  found  on  the  coast 
region  of  Texas  and  southwestern  Louisiana, 
will  be  found  in  Forest  and  Stream  (xi,  No.  20, 
May  18,  1893,  425).  They  occur  in  Refugio 
Co.,  it  being  a  form  that  comes  very  close 
to  americanus. 

I  will  conclude  what  I  have  to  say  about 
the  prairie  chickens  of  this  genus  in  the  next 
Part, — that  is  Part  IV.,  which  will  finish 
this  series. 


Wop  Henderson  Has  the  Floor 


By  H.  A.  SCOTFORD 


LD  Grimes  was  attending 
to  the  wants  of  a  snub 
nosed  urchin  who  wished 
four  cents  worth  of  oat 
meal  and  the  rest  of  the 
dime  in  vinegar,  Snog 
Porter  was  sorting  flies 
out  of  the  dried  currants 
as  he  ate  therefrom,  Wop 
Henderson  was  trying  his  knife  on  the 
cheese  and  Sammy  Green  was  transferring 
the  larger  portion  of  the  poor  box  to  his 


pocket,  when  the  door  flew  open  and  in 
popped  Tamarack  Jones,  his  eyes  fairly 
bursting  from  their  sockets  as  he  tried  to 
surround  his  vanished  wind  and  tell  his  news 
at  one  and  the  same  time. 

"Wolves!  Wolves!"  he  strangled  out,  and 
in  the  ensuing  excitement  Sammy  took  a 
chew  of  sawdust  from  the  egg  crate,  Snog 
threw  currants  on  the  floor  and  ate  six  flies, 
Wop  shaved  a  sliver  from  the  cheese  box 
and  started  to  chew  it  and  Grimes  carefully 
tied  the  vinegar  into  a  paper  sack. 


Fig.    15.     Male   of    heath    hen    (Tym 


npanuchus  cupido).     Drawing   by  T.   W.   Wood.     Photographically   copied   byTthe 
author  from  Darwin's  "The  Descent  of  Man." 


The  American  Grouse  and  Their  Identi- 
fication 

By  DR.  R.  W.  SHUFELDT 

PRAIRIE  CHICKENS  (Concluded).     SHARP-TAILED  GROUSE;    SAGE  HEN 

PART  IV. 

WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM  DRAWINGS  AND  PHOTOGRAPHS  BY  THE  AUTHOR 


continue  my  descrip- 
tions of  prairie  chickens 
of  the  genus  Tympanuchus 
which,  for  the  lack  of 
space,  I  could  not  com- 
plete in  Part  III  of  the 
present  series. 

The  woodland  heath 
hen,  or  pinnated  grouse 
of  Martha's  Vineyard,  is  the  Tympanuchus 
cupido  of  science.  It  is  smaller  than  any 
of  the  other  forms  of  this  genus,  and  a 
century  or  more  ago  it  was  an  abundant 
bird  on  certain  parts  of  Long  Island  and  on 
a  considerable  portion  of  the  states  of  the 


Atlantic,  down  i-nto  Virginia.  As  before 
stated,  it  is  being  strictly  protected  on 
Martha's  Vineyard,  Massachusetts,  where  a 
few  pairs  are  still  in  existence, — about  300 
birds  altogether. 

Eaton,  in  his  Birds  of  New  York,  gives  us 
a  good  cut  of  the  heath  hen,  it  being  a  repro- 
duction of  a  photograph  of  the  mounted 
specimen  in  the  Museum  of  Vassar  College. 
His  description  of  the  bird  is  apparently 
for  both  sexes,  being  as  follows:  "Tarsi 
lightly  feathered  to  the  toes;  a  tuft  of  from 
seven  to  ten  elongated  pointed  feathers  on  each 
side  of  the  neck  over  the  naked  membrane, 
which  is  very  distensible  in  the  mating 


586 


The  Outer's  Book 


season,  being  inflated  at  will  until  it  looks 
like  a  small  orange;  tail  short,  of  18  stiff 
feathers;  breast  meat  dark;  upper  parts 
light  reddish  brown  barred  with  dusky  and 
buff;  under  parts  white  broadly  barred  with 
brown;  chin,  throat,  cheeks  and  stripe  over 
eye  buffy.  Length  16  inches;  extent  27; 
wing  8.3^-8.6;  tail  4.  Female  smaller;  wing 
8;  darker  and  rustier."  (p.  376). 

Coues  remarks  that  this  bird  very  closely 
resembles  the  common  pinnated  grouse  of 
the  West  and  says,  quoting  some  other 
authority  which  he  does  not  name,  "neck- 
tufts  composed  of  from  three  to  five  narrow, 
acutely  lance-pointed,  stiffened  feathers,  with 
about  the  same  number  of  overlapping 
coverts."  Ridgway  states  of  this  species 
"Scapulars  with  large  and  very  conspicuous 
terminal  spots  of  buffy  whitish;  neck-tufts  of 
adult  male  composed  of  not  more  than  ten 
lanceolate,  pointed  feathers."  (Manual,  p. 
203).  Coues  confirms  the  scapulars  being 
spotted  by  the  feathers  having  whitish  tips. 

A  pretty  good  figure  is  given  of  this  heath 
hen  (T.  cupido)  in  Darwin's  "The  Descent 
of  Man,"  and  this  is  here  reproduced  as 
Figure  15  from  a  photograph  I  made  of  it. 
It  is  from  an  original  drawing  by  T.  W.  Wood, 
and  represents  the  male  in  the  act  of  strutting. 

In  the  Northwest,  the  common  prairie 
chicken  not  unfrequently  crosses  with  the 
sharp-tailed  grouse — either  the  prairie  or  the 
Columbian — and  if  such  interesting  hybrids 
are  met  with  by  sportsmen,  they  should,  if  pos- 
sible, be  preserved.  Years  ago,  I  published 
an  account  of  the  skeleton  of  one  of  these 
hybrids,  sent  me  by  the  distinguished  ornithol- 
ogist of  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  Mr. 
William  Brewster. 

As  in  the  case  of  T.  cupido,  the  lesser 
prairie  chicken  (T.  pallidicinctus)  is  smaller 
than  americanus,  and  its  markings  above  are 
more  of  a  brown  than  black,  the  dark  ones 
not  being  in  excess  of  the  light,  the  transverse 
bars  being  brown  with  narrow  edges.  Be- 
neath, the  narrow  dark  bars  are  inclined  to 
enclose  a  broad  brown  one  between  any  two 
dusky  ones. 

In  this  species,  the  tarsi  are  very  light 
feathered,  to  the  extent  of  having  an  un- 
feathered  longitudinal  strip  posteriorly. 

This  pale  pinnated  grouse  is  the  one  we 
find  in  Kansas  and  Indian  territory,  down 
into  Texas;  while  further  down,  coast- wise, 
in  the  latter  state  and  Louisiana,  we  get 
Attwater's, — the  heath  hen  is  the  Martha's 
Vineyard  one;  the  rest  are  the  common 
prairie  chicken. 

With  this,  and  the  data  I  have  given 
above,  one  can  identify  any  of  the  prairie 
chickens  of  the  genus  Tympanuchus  in  this 
country,  including  those  found  in  Alaska. 


Passing  to  the  sharp-tailed  grouse  of  the 
genus  Pedioecetes  and  the  sage  hen  (Centro- 
cercus),  it  is  as  though  I  were  meeting  old 
friends  of  by-gone  days,  for  I  was  for  many 
years  in  the  country  where  both  were  ex- 
tremely abundant,  and  it  would  be  hard 
for  me  to  say  how  many  of  them  have  fallen 
for  my  gun. 

For  Pedcecetes,  we  have  the  sharp-tailed 
grouse,  P.  p.  phasiandlus,  an  elegant  game 
bird  ranging  through  "Central  Alaska  and 
northwestern  British  Columbia  east  through 
central  Keewatin  to  central  western  Ungava, 
and  south  to  Lake  Superior  and  the  Parry 
Sound  district,  Ontario,  casual  east  to 
Saguenay  River,  Quebec."  (A.  O.  U. 
"Check-List").  It  is  therefore  not  a  repre- 
sentative of  our  avifauna,  while  the  two 
subspecies  of  the  genus  are, — the  better 
known  to  us  being  the  Columbian  sharp- 
tailed  grouse  (P.  phasianellus  colu mbianus) . 
This  form  has  a  range  extending  through 
central  British  Columbia  and  central  Alberta 
southward  to  northeastern  California,  Utah 
and  central  Colorado. 

The  word  phasianellus  is  the  Latin  diminu- 
tive of  phasianus,  a  pheasant,  while  colum- 
bianus  refers  to  the  Columbia  River.  In 
the  case  of  our  second  subspecies,  the  prairie 
sharp-tailed  grouse  (P.  p.  campeslris),  its 
subspecific  name  is  also  from  the  Latin, — 
campus  meaning  an  extensive  open  area  or 
plain.  This  bird  ranges  through  southern 
Alberta  and  southern  Manitoba,  to  Wyoming, 
Kansas  and  northern  Illinois. 

The  Columbian  sharp-tailed  grouse  has 
received  numerous  common  names,  one  or 
more  being  applied  to  it  in  any  section  of 
its  range.  Throughout  the  Northwest,  it  is 
generally  known  as  the  prairie  chicken;  it 
is  also  called  the  pin-spike — or  sprig-tailed 
grouse,  etc.,  or  these  terms  without  the  word 
grouse  being  used.  I  have  been  in  sections 
of  the  Northwest  where  they  are  simply 
called  "pin-tails."  As  elsewhere  stated, 
they  will  cross  with  the  pinnated  grouse,  and 
numerous  hybrids  have  been  taken. 

Audubon's  account  of  the  habits  of  the 
sharp-tailed  grouse  was  furnished  him  by  Sir 
John  Richardson,  Mr.  Higgins  and  Townsend, 
and  it  fully  agrees  with  my  own  observations 
of  this  bird.  He  states  that  the  bird  was 
unknown  to  him,  and,  unfortunately,  he 
does  not  say  who  loaned  him  the  skins  of 
this  species  from  which  he  made  his  plate 
(Vol.  V.,  No.  60,  PI.  298),  and  from  which  he 
made  his  descriptions  of  plumage,  etc.  I 
have  photographed  this  plate  and  it  is  here 
reproduced  as  Figure  16;  the  pair  of  birds 
there  shown  have — to  me — the  appearance 
of  the  Columbian  sharp-tailed  grouse. 


Sh 


rp-tailed   grouse    (Pedioecelts   phasianellus  probably   columbianus).     Reproduced  from  a  photograph  by 
the  author  of  Audubon's  plate.     The  male  is  in  advance  of  the  female. 


The  sharp-tailed  grouse  found  around 
Hudson's  Bay  was,  as  long  ago  as  1758,  first 
designated  by  Linnaeus  (Syst.  Nat.  ed.  10,  I. 
160,  Tetrao  phasianellus),  and  it  is  stated 
that  Lewis  and  Clark,  in  1805-6,  were  the 
discoverers  of  the  Columbian  sharp-tailed 
grouse;  if  they  furnished  Audubon  with  his 
material,  the  birds  in  Figure  16  are  of  that 
subspecies.  If  he  got  them  from  Richardson, 
they  are  probably  phasianellus,  but  I  have 
not  the  data  at  hand  to  settle  this  point  at 
the  present  time.  It  was  Lewis  and  Clark 
who  noted  that  the  scales  in  the  summer 
time  come  off  the  toes  in  these  grouse, 
which  is  an  interesting  fact.  In  all  the  forms, 
the  female  is  smaller  than  the  male,  and  the 
tints  of  her  plumage  paler.  Pullets  and 
chicks  have  special  plumages  for  description, 
but  our  space  will  not  admit  of  giving  such 
information  here. 

In  the  adults,  the  tail  of  this  grouse  will 
at  once  suggest  the  genus  to  which  it  belongs 
on  account  of  the  elongated,  two  central 
feathers  with  their  square  ends,  as  shown 
in  the  Figure.  So  it  remains  only  to  furnish 
data,  by  means  of  which  one  can  determine  the 
subspecies.  In  this,  one  will  be  helped  by 
knowing  where  the  specimen — or  specimens — 
were  shot, — that  is,  the  range.  Further 
assistance  will  be  found  in  making  a  com- 
parison with  the  birds  in  Figure  16,  which, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  presents  the  remarkable 
plumage  markings  of  this  grouse,  apart 
from  the  question  of  color.  It  is  on  account 


of  the  blacks,  browns,  dusky  shades,  buffs, 
white,  grays,  tawny,  and  the  rest  for  colors 
found  in  the  plumages  of  this  group  of  grouse 
and  the  markings  on  the  feathers  in  various 
parts  of  the  plumage,  as  spots,  "V-shaped 
marks,"  streaks, bars,  irregular  dots;  U-shaped 
spots,  "sharp-angled  -stars,"  speckles,  "gutti- 
form  spots,"  etc.,  that  furnishes  the  reason 
why  authors  have  been  compelled  to  give  us 
such  lengthy  descriptions  of  the  appearance 
of  the  established  forms,  in  so  far  as  the 
plumages  are  concerned. 

Ridgway,  in  his  "Manual,"  does  not 
mention  how  many  feathers  compose  the 
tail  in  a  sharp-tailed  grouse;  Audubon  says 
there  are  16,  and  Coues,  in  his  "Key,"  says 
18,  which  is  correct,  the  two  elongated 
middle  feathers  being  colored  above  like 
the  back.  Audubon  probably  overlooked 
them,  counted  8  on  either  side, — and  hence  16. 

Coues,  in  describing  the  male  and  female 
of  the  Columbian  sharp-tailed  grouse  (P.  p. 
colu mbianus) ,  says  that  the  "Upper  parts 
closely  and  pretty  evenly  variegated  with 
blackish-brown,  reddish-brown,  and  grayish- 
brown,  the  pattern  smallest  on  rump  and 
lower  back,  where  the  blackish  is  mostly  in 
sharp-angled  stars;  the  reddish  most  con- 
spicuous on  upper  back,  and  both  the  lighter 
colors  everywhere  finely  sprinkled  with  black- 
ish. Wing-coverts  like  upper  back,  but  with 
numerous  conspicuous  rounded  white  spots, 
one  on  end  of  each  feather.  Crown  and  back 
of  neck  nearly  like  back,  but  in  smaller 


588 


The  Outer's  Book 


pattern,  and  the  markings  mostly  transverse. 
An  illy-defined  white  area  on  each  side  of 
neck,  over  tympanum,  and  slight  whitish 
stripe  behind  eye.  Throat  fine  light  buff, 
usually  immaculate,  but  sometimes  finely 
speckled  quite  across.  Under  parts  white, 
more  or  less  tinted  with  buff  toward  throat; 
breast  with  numerous  regular  dark  brown 
U-shaped  spots,  one  on  each  feather;  similar 
but  smaller,  sharper  and  fewer  such  spots 
thence  scattered  over  most  of  the  under 
parts,  only  middle  of  belly  being  left  un- 
marked. Long  feathers  of  sides  under  wings 
matching  upper  wing-coverts  nearly;  under 
wing-coverts  and  auxiliaries  pure  white,  not 
marked;  flanks  with  bars  or  V-spots  of  dark 
brown.  Legs  grayish-white,  unmarked. 
Quills  of  wings  fuscous;  outer  webs  of  secon- 
daries with  equidistant,  squarish,  white  or 
tawny  spots,  secondaries  tipped  and  imper- 
fectly twice  or  thrice  barred  with  white,  and 
gradually  becoming  sprinkled  with  the  varied 
color  of  back,  so  that  the  innermost  of  them  are 
almost  precisely  like  greater  coverts.  Four 
middle  tail-feathers  variegated,  much  like 
back;  others  white  or  grayish- white  on  inner 
webs,  the  outer  webs  being  mottled;  a  few 
under  tail-coverts  spotted,  the  rest  white; 
upper  tail-coverts  nearly  like  rump.  Iris 
light  brown;  bill  dark  horn-color;  part  of 
under  mandible  flesh-colored;  claws  like  bill; 
toes  on  top  light  horn-color,  soles  darker. 
Length  18.00-20.QO;  extent  24.00-30.00;  wing 
8.00-9.00;  middle  tail-feathers  4.00-6.00; 
shortest  tail-feathers  (outermost)  about  1.50 
inches."  ("Key",  5th  edition,  1903,  pp. 
737,  738). 

Surely  no  one  will  ever  miss  identifying  a 
Columbian  sharp-tailed  grouse  from  this 
description.  I  quote  it  in  full,  in  preference 
to  any  other  known  to  me,  in  order  that  it 
may  be  passed  along  as  standard.  When  read, 
it  should  be  compared  with  Figure  16  of  the 
present  Part.  I  can  fully  endorse  it  as 
agreeing  with  my  own  observations. 

Ridgway  first  described  the  prairie  sharp- 
tailed  grouse  (Pedioecetes  phasianellus  campes- 
iris),  believing,  as  he  did,  that  the  specimens 
he  examined  were  "above  more  rusty  or 
ochraceous,"  and  Coues,  in  his  "Key," 
records  "the  name  without  further  remark." 
(Proc.  Biol.  Soc.  Wash.  II,  Apr.  10,  1884,  93). 
The  compilers  of  the  A.  O.  U.  "Check-List" 
(3rd  ed.  1910)  have  recognized  the  subspecies 
(p.  144),  and  it  is  therefore  listed  here.  At 
the  limits  of  their  several  ranges,  these 
sharp-tailed  grouse  imperceptibly  grade  into 
each  other,  and  so  we  find  examples,  the 
plumages  of  which — and  to  some  extent  other 
characters — would  require  special  descriptions 
to  record  them,  as  they  depart — in  one 
particular  or  another,  or  in  several  particu- 


lars— from  the  recognized  type  forms.  By 
taking  a  map  upon  which  may  be  plotted  out 
all  the  ranges  of  the  several  kinds  of  grouse 
of  this  genus,  it  will  at  once  be  appreciated 
in  which  parts  of  this  country,  Alaska,  or 
the  Dominion  of  Canada  we  would  be  likely 
to  meet  with  the  "intermediates,"  and  where 
we  would  not;  and  finally,  where  the  typical 
representatives  of  any  of  the  three  subspecies 
would  occur. 

There  is  but  one  more  grouse  left  for  me 
to  consider  in  the  present  contribution,  and 
it  is  the  largest  of  all  our  American  ones. 
This  is  the  sage  hen,  known  also  as  the  sage 
cock  and  "cock  of  the  plains,"  Centrocercus 
urophasianus  (Gr.  our  a,  tail,  and  phasianus, 
a  pheasant). 

This  magnificent  representative  of  the 
TetraonidcR  is  an  inhabitant  of  the  sagebrush 
plains  of  middle  eastern  California,  New 
Mexico  and  Arizona,  northwestern  Nebraska, 
and  still  northward  to  49°  farther,  into 
British  Columbia,  southern  Saskatchewan, 
Alberta,  thence  in  northwestern  Dakota  and 
Missouri  Basin.  I  found  it  very  abundant 
on  the  eastern  slopes  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, in  Wyoming  and  northward.  It  is — 
or  was — to  be  found  in  immense  flocks  on 
the  sage  plains  of  certain  parts  of  Utah, 
Idaho,  Nevada  and  Oregon. 

On  the  plains  in  western  Wyoming,  south 
of  the  Owl  Creek  Mountains,  I  frequently 
met  with  flocks  numbering  several  hundreds 
in  the  latter  70's.  I  knew  of  a  man  who  rode 
through  such  a  flock  and  killed  over  a  dozen 
by  knocking  them  over  with  his  "quirt;" 
indeed,  such  wanton  amusement  was  by  no 
means  uncommon. 

Up  to  date,  there  has  been  but  one  species 
of  sage  cock  described;  it  was  Swainson  who 
created  the  genus  about  1831  or  32,  and  Bona- 
parte named  the  bird  Tetro  urophasianus  in 
1827  (Zool.  Jour.  III.  213),— hence  the  name 
it  bears. 

Wilson  never  knew  of  its  existence,  and 
Audubon  saw  only  a  few  skins  of  them.  His 
account  of  the  bird — which  he  called  the 
pheasant-tailed  grouse — consists  of  three 
published  letters,  one  from  Townsend,  one 
from  Nuttall  and  one  from  Douglas.  Those 
from  the  two  first-named  naturalists  are 
excellent,  and  the  statements  in  them  true 
and  interesting.  Its  flight,  as  described  by 
Douglas,  is  entirely  incorrect,  and,  when 
describing  the  courtship  of  the  male,  his 
statement  that  "the  bare  yellow  oesophagus 
inflated  to  a  prodigious  size, — fully  half  as 
large  as  his  body,  and,  from  its  soft  membrane- 
ous substance,  being  well  contrasted  with  the 
scale-like  feathers,"  etc.,  etc.,  is  not  only 
untrue,  but  ridiculous. 


Fig.  17.     Male  and  femalejof  thejsage  hen  (Cenirocercus  urophasianus).    Male  with  tail  erect.    Reproduction  of  Audubon's 
plate  from  a  photograph  of  it  by  the  author. 


In  Figure  17  I  herewith  reproduce,  by 
means  of  photography,  Audubon's  plate  of 
a  pair  of  sage  cocks,  which  fairly  well  repre- 
sents them.  He  says  of  the  latter,  however, 
that  "In  some  individuals,  as  I  am  informed 
by  Mr.  Townsend,  the  hair-like  shafts  of 
the  feathers  on  the  sides  of  the  neck  are 
considerably  longer  than  in  my  figure  of  the 
male,"  which,  I  may  add,  is  very  true. 

Personally,  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  these 
birds  do  not  gain  their  full  size  until  about 
the  third  summer,  as  this  and  the  weight  of 
the  sexes  vary  so.  Males  run  from  four  to 
upwards  of  eight  pounds,  and  females — 
which  are  about  a  third  smaller  than  the 
cocks — never  over  five  pounds. 

Males,  having  attained  their  full  size,  are 
about  two  and  a  half  feet  long;  wing  extent 
about  a  yard,  and  the  tail  averages  a  foot 
or  more.  The  under  parts  are  mostly  white, 
with  an  area  of  deep  black  on  the  abdomen; 
above,  the  prevailing  colors  are  buff,  gray, 
black  and  brown,  exhibiting  considerable 
variation. 

The  feathers  on  either  side  of  the  neck  are 
stiff  and  wiry,  especially  at  their  bases. 
These  lateral  cervical  patches  meet  each 
other  in  front,  and  the  feathers  composing 
them  have  their  ends  produced  as  filament- 
ous extensions,  three  or  four  inches  long,  of 
a  peculiar  kind.  During  the  breeding  season, 
these  all  wear  down,  leaving  but  stiff,  scale- 


like  remnants  to  represent  them.  It  is 
anterior  to  these  curious  feather  tracts  that 
we  find  the  nude  tympana  which  are  capable 
of  such  enormous  inflation  with  air  during 
the  amatory  display  and  strutting  of  the  cock 
before  the  hens  when  courting.  Either  air-sac 
has  above  it  a  tuft  of  much  softer  feathers, 
over  which  are  to  be  found  still  others  of  a 
plumbaceous  sort,  which  seem  to  represent 
the  firmer  and  far  better  developed  ones  in 
the  pinnated  and  ruffed  grouse.  On  the 
breast,  most  of  the  feathers  are  coarse  and 
bristly,  having,  as  in  the  case  of  those  of  the 
lower  neck  in  front,  been  worn  down  to 
mere  scales  and  threads  in  his  antics  before 
the  females  of  his  harem,  to  prove  to  them 
that  the  breeding  season  is  at  hand,  and  how 
much  he  thinks  of  them. 

The  scaly  kind  have  dirty,  white  bases 
with  their  filamentous  ends  dusky,  the  softer, 
downy  ones  all  being  pure  white,  while  over 
all  there  are  the  deep  black  and  glossy  plumes 
of  this  part  of  the  bird's  plumage.  Entire 
throat  black,  with  the  ends  of  the  feathers 
speckled  with  white,  these  massing  to  form 
below  a  white  semi-color.  (Fig.  17).  Inside 
of  wings  white.  Lower  tail-coverts  black, 
broadly  tipped  with  white. 

The  pattern  of  the  tail  and  upper  tail- 
coverts  are  well  shown  in  Figure  17. 

In  the  female  the  throat  is  not  black,  but 
on  the  contrary  with  the  chin  is  pure  white, 


590 


The  Outer's  Book 


while  the  black  below,  on  the  fore-chest,  is 
replaced  by  speckled  gray.  In  her,  too,  the 
air-sacs  are  rudimentary,  and  'none  of  the 
neck-feathers  are  peculiar.  In  fact,  while  in 
general  her  plumage  is  like  that  of  the  male, 
it  is  nevertheless  more  subdued,  the  shorter 
and  softer  feathers  tapering  more  rapidly. 

I  have  published  the  osteology  of  the  adults, 
pullets  and  chicks  of  this  species  from  speci- 
mens collected  by  myself.  The  pullets,  in 
September,  are  much  like  the  female  in 
plumage,  and  their  hunting  is  not  to  be 
despised  as  they  are  excellent  table-fowls. 
The  adults  have  their  flesh  too  powerfully 
impregnated  with  the  taste  of  the  leaves 
and  buds  of  the  artemisia  they  feed  upon  as 
a  part  of  their  diet  to  be  pronounced  good 
eating.  It  goes  pretty  well,  however,  when 
one  is  very  hungry  and  has  not  seen  any 
fresh  meat  for  a  long  time,  particularly  if  the 
hunter  will  take  the  pains  to  "draw"  the 
bird  as  soon  as  shot. 

The  digestive  tract  of  Centrocercus  is 
worthy  of  a  more  careful  and  complete 


anatomical  description  than  it  has  h  retofore 
received.  It  is  quite  different  from  what  we 
find  in  the  other  genera.  Years  ago,  J  lugway 
pointed  out  this  fact  as  follows:  "A  peculi- 
arity of  this  species,  which  I  have  not  seen 
noticed,  is  that  its  stomach,  instead  of  being 
hard  and  very  muscular  as  in  other  Gdlinacea 
is  soft  and  membraneous,  like  that  of  the 
birds  of  prey.  This  was  first  told  me  by 
hunters  in  Nevada,  and  I  afterward  satisfied 
myself  of  the  truth  of  their  statement  that 
the  sage  hen  "has  no  gizzard,"  by  dissecting 
a  sufficient  number  of  individuals."  (Am. 
Nat.  VIII.,  1874). 

This  fact  I  have  demonstrated  a  number 
of  times  for  my  own  satisfaction,  the  first 
dissection  of  the  kind  being  upon  an  unusu- 
ally large  male  bird,  which  I  opened  with  a 
hunting-knife  on  the  pommel  of  my  saddle, 
while  riding  after  Indians  in  1879  in  Wyoming, 
and  attached  as  surgeon  to  a  large  military 
outfit  in  the  field.  It  surely  was  a  case  of 
pursuing  the  study  of  avian  anatomy  under 
peculiar  circumstances. 


An  Unorthodox  Bear  Story 


By  PAUL  E.  TRIEM 


[D  I  ever  hunt  bears?" 
old  man  Browning  re- 
peated. "Did  you  ever 
hunt  earthquakes?" 

Mr.    Todd    admitted 
that  he  never  had. 

"Well,  it'd  be  just  as 
safe  as  bear  hunting,  and 
there'd  be  more  amuse- 
ment in  it,  to  my  way  of  thinking,"  the  old 
man  assured  him. 

"But  your  nephew?"  Mr.  Todd  suggested. 

"I'm  not  responsible  for  any  of  Charlie's 

foolishness,"    Mr.    Browning    said.      Then 

catching  a  look  of  disappointment  on   Mr. 

Todd's  face,  the  old  man  relented  a  little. 

"I  suppose  you're  looking  for  information 
about  bears,  and  came  to  me  because  you 
couldn't  get  Charlie  to  talk?"  he  queried. 

Mr.  Todd  admitted  that  he  found  the 
younger  Browning  rather  uncommunica- 
tive. 

"Well,"  Mr.  Browning  said,  "I  had  a 
misunderstanding  with  a  bear  the  first  year 


after  I  came  to  live  with  Charlie  that  shows 
how  near  a  man  can  come  to  playing  second 
fiddle  in  a  bear  fight  and  still  get  out  alive; 
as  that  seems  to  be  the  main  part  of  every 
bear  story  I  ever  heard,  it'll  probably  answer 
as  well  as  if  I'd  gone  out  for  the  very  purpose 
of  getting  into  trouble." 

The  old  man  made  this  remark  tentatively; 
apparently  he  was  not  sure  that  Mr  Todd 
would  care  to  hear  a  bear  story  that  savored 
of  the  unorthodox. 

"The  bear's  the  thing  I'm  interested  in," 
Mr.  Todd  assured  him.  "I  don't  care 
whether  you  hunted  him  or  whether  he 
hunted  you." 

"Thank  you,"  the  old  man  said  grimly. 
"I  cared  considerable  at  the  time,  but  I'm 
getting  to  look  at  it  the  same  as  you  do.  As 
I  said,  it  was  the  first  year  after  I  came  west; 
I  hadn't  learned  to  shoot— didn't  care  much 
for  meat,  anyhow — but  I  could  fish  and  I'd 
pretty  well  caught  the  knack  of  spearing 
salmon." 


000302780 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


590          

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Form  L9-116m-8,'62(D1237s8)444 

By  PAUL  E.  TRIEM 


[D  I  ever  hunt  bears?" 
old  man  Browning  re- 
peated. "Did  you  ever 
hunt  earthquakes?" 

Mr.    Todd    admitted 
that  he  never  had. 

"Well,  it'd  be  just  as 
safe  as  bear  hunting,  and 
there'd   be   more   amuse- 
ment in  it,  to  my  way  of  thinking,"  the  old 
man  assured  him. 

"But  your  nephew?"  Mr.  Todd  suggested. 

"I'm  not  responsible  for  any  of  Charlie's 

foolishness,"    Mr.    Browning    said.      Then 

catching  a  look  of  disappointment  on  Mr. 

Todd's  face,  the  old  man  relented  a  little. 

"I  suppose  you're  looking  for  information 
about  bears,  and  came  to  me  because  you 
couldn't  get  Charlie  to  talk?"  he  queried. 

Mr.  Todd  admitted  that  he  found  the 
younger  Browning  rather  uncommunica- 
tive. 

"Well,"  Mr.  Browning  said,  "I  had  a 
misunderstanding  with  a  bear  the  first  year 


after  I  came  to  live  with  Charlie  that  shows 
how  near  a  man  can  come  to  playing  second 
fiddle  in  a  bear  fight  and  still  get  out  alive; 
as  that  seems  to  be  the  main  part  of  every 
bear  story  I  ever  heard,  it'll  probably  answer 
as  well  as  if  I'd  gone  out  for  the  very  purpose 
of  getting  into  trouble." 

The  old  man  made  this  remark  tentatively; 
apparently  he  was  not  sure  that  Mr  Todd 
would  care  to  hear  a  bear  story  that  savored 
of  the  unorthodox. 

"The  bear's  the  thing  I'm  interested  in," 
Mr.  Todd  assured  him.  "I  don't  care 
whether  you  hunted  him  or  whether  he 
hunted  you." 

"Thank  you,"  the  old  man  said  grimly. 
"I  cared  considerable  at  the  time,  but  I'm 
getting  to  look  at  it  the  same  as  you  do.  As 
I  said,  it  was  the  first  year  after  I  came  west; 
I  hadn't  learned  to  shoot — didn't  care  much 
for  meat,  anyhow — but  I  could  fish  and  I'd 
pretty  well  caught  the  knack  of  spearing 
salmon." 


AA      000302780 


